Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Tan, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, University of Canterbury

Since the dawn of the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system in 1996, New Zealand’s parliament has become increasingly diverse. The 2020 election saw a record number of female MPs enter parliament and a world record proportion of MPs from the rainbow community.

Ethnic diversity also increased in 2020, with New Zealand having elected “one of the most diverse parliaments in the world” according to a CNN report at the time.

But the 2023 election saw a significant swing to the right, with a host of new MPs entering parliament. This inevitably changed the demographics.

Overall, New Zealand’s parliamentary representation has become less ethnically diverse, with a few exceptions, suggesting some parties need to look at the composition of their candidate lists and memberships.

Changes since 2020

The 2023 election result created a more complex picture of ethnic diversity in the country’s political representation.

The increase in the proportion of Māori MPs since the first MMP election has continued. Nearly 27% of MPs in parliament after the 2023 election identify has Māori, up from 22.5% in 2020, and more than double the proportion in 1996 (13%).

Prior to 1996, none of New Zealand’s MPs were of Asian decent, and only one (Taito Phillip Field) came from the Pasifika community. In 2020, 11 Pasifika MPs were elected, accounting for 9% of all MPs. But after the 2023 election, this has dropped to 6%.

The proportion of MPs of Asian ethnicity has only marginally increased, from 6.5% in 2020 to 6.6% in 2023. It’s important to note that “Asian” includes people whose heritage is from the Indian subcontinent as well as East Asia.

In 2020, the first MPs with Middle Eastern, Latin American or African heritage were elected to parliament, making up 1.7% of MPs. In 2023, this increased to 2.5%.

Parliament and society

Parties across the political spectrum have different commitments to ethnic diversity. And some parties have do not have any MPs from certain ethnic groups.

For example, the centre-left (Labour, Greens and te Pāti Māori) has a higher proportion of Māori MPs. NZ First and te Pati Māori have no Asian MPs, and only Labour and the Greens have Pasifika MPs in their caucuses.

À lire aussi :
NZ’s Green Party is ‘filling the void on the left’ as voters grow frustrated with Labour’s centrist shift

Along with having no Pasifika MPs, the National Party has the lowest proportion of Māori MPs of any political party, with just 10% of its caucus identifying as Māori.

Although the party has some MPs of Asian ethnicity in its caucus (6%), for the second term in a row it has no MPs of Indian heritage. The Indian community comprises 6.1% of the general population, making it one of the largest Asian groups in New Zealand.

Compared with the overall population, the next parliament also presents a varied picture. The proportion of Māori MPs, for instance, is notably higher than New Zealand’s Māori population. In 2023, 17.4% of the population and nearly 27% of elected MPs identify as Māori.

However, the proportion of Pasifika and Asian MPs elected in 2023 falls below their corresponding share of the population. The Pasifika population sits around 9%, but only 5.6% of MPs with Pacific descent were elected.

Similarly, Asian MPs will comprise only 6.6% of parliament, whereas the Asian population now stands at 18% of the total.

Despite this, New Zealand’s ethnic representation compares well with other industrialised democracies. Around 44% of New Zealand’s population and 40% of MPs belong to an ethnic minority group.

Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have a greater disparity between the proportion of ethnic minority MPs and the proportion of their ethnic minority population.

In Canada, 15.7% of its lower house MPs and 26.3% of its population come from ethnic minority groups, whereas in Australia 6.6% of lower house MPs and 23% of the population belong to ethnic minorities.

The UK performs marginally better, with 10% of MPs in the House of Commons and 16% of the population coming from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Minority groups in the executive

Some minority groups are better represented in parliament than others, but it remains to be seen whether the same can be said about ethnic representation in the cabinet.

During the 2017-2020 government, 29% of all ministerial appointments were Māori, 13% were Pasifika and only 3% Asian. In the 2020-2023 government, 40% of executive office holders were Māori, 14% Pasifika and 7% Asian.

While Māori and Pasifika MPs held high-level executive positions between 2017 and 2023, including Winston Peters and Carmel Sepuloni as deputy prime minister, the same could not be said for Asian MPs. The highest-ranked MP of Asian ethnicity was health minister Ayesha Verrall, who reached number seven in Chris Hipkins’ cabinet.

Some concern has already been expressed about the lack of Pasifika representation in the new government, with none of the coalition parties having Pasifika MPs in their ranks.

Representation and democracy

As New Zealand continues to grow more ethnically diverse, the question of how this is reflected in political institutions becomes more crucial.

The health of a democratic system like New Zealand’s can be measured by the extent to which minorities participate in its democracy. Minority representation in a democracy is also a good indicator of other democratic values, such as inclusiveness and legitimacy of the political system.

À lire aussi :
Can New Zealand’s most diverse ever cabinet improve representation of women and minorities in general?

Political parties have already been instrumental in improving the representation of women in politics. Both Labour and the Greens have policies to promote gender equity in parliament.

Similarly, parties can take a more active role and adopt strategies to enhance ethnic minority representation in politics, particularly from under-represented groups such as New Zealand’s Pasifika and Asian communities.

Alexander Tan is affiliated with the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs (IIPA), Christchurch.

Neel Rajesh Vanvari is affiliated with the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs (IIPA) based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

– ref. Lost voices: ethnic diversity in the New Zealand parliament will decline after the 2023 election – https://theconversation.com/lost-voices-ethnic-diversity-in-the-new-zealand-parliament-will-decline-after-the-2023-election-217648

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anahita Sal Moslehian, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, HOME Research Centre, Deakin University

State governments across the country have plans to increase social and affordable housing to address ballooning waitlists.

While necessary, this won’t be enough to clear the backlog of people waiting for public housing.

It also takes time to make more affordable long-term housing options available. So what can be done in the meantime?

Our research shows a new way of providing interim housing to support people transitioning out of homelessness.

Read more:
Efforts to find safe housing for homeless youth have gone backwards. Here’s what the new national plan must do differently

Short-term solutions in high demand

Studies have stressed the importance of meeting people’s immediate needs for secure and affordable homes, even in the short term.

It’s fallen to community housing providers to look at ways to provide immediate shelter.

Two providers in Victoria launched the Independent Living Units Program to address this gap.

The prefabricated units, or “tiny homes”, are homely, stylish, energy-efficient and compact.

Designed to house men experiencing homelessness, they’re a temporary home for six months to get people out of crisis accommodation while they try to break into the private housing market.

Importantly, the residents are also provided with individual case managers and tailored support services on site to help them transition from homelessness.

It’s a careful balance of two different housing approaches you may have heard of: housing first and treatment first.

Housing first prioritises stable and permanent housing over all else.

Treatment first integrates housing with support services, prioritising addressing underlying issues such as mental health disorders. This often means people must be able to demonstrate a period of treatment compliance before they’re allowed to live independently.

These two approaches haven’t worked perfectly alone. This program sought to put the best of both of them together.

Built environment key to success

Early in the project, testimonials were promising, so we were brought on board to evaluate it academically.

Our research analysed the experiences of people who’d lived in the units. It also looked at the goals of the program, the demand for it and viability of funding.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, our analysis supported the importance of having supportive, forgiving environments for people escaping homelessness.

There’s already plenty of research supporting this idea.

We found, in practice, such an environment should support independent living and meaningful community connectedness.

Read more:
Ageing in a housing crisis: growing numbers of older Australians are facing a bleak future

All this may sound obvious, but it’s not just about a roof and some support services. The key to achieving the environment people need is in the design of the housing itself.

In other words, the built environment helps create the social and emotional one.

The Independent Living Units Program demonstrates this idea in practice.

In particular, we identified 18 factors that were important, including appropriately sized self-contained units, planned activities, semi-open spaces and clustered unit arrangements.

Our research also shows how these factors need to function together to create a sense of home after homelessness, especially when such a place is temporary.

Residents told us there were many benefits beyond immediate relief of homelessness. These include:

• reduced levels of anxiety

• enhanced safety and security

• stable and consistent daily routines and overall wellbeing

• boosted self-confidence and self-reliance

• a sense of worthiness and empowerment over their life

• a burgeoning sense of community.

On a logistical level, the program brought together various stakeholders.

A housing association, local higher education and research institutions, a local manufacturer, state government departments, philanthropists and a charitable organisation were all involved.

Overall, our study found the program fills a gap in the current wide range of housing solutions.

How would it work on a larger scale?

The Independent Living Units Program is a small initiative based in Geelong, but its unique approach could be replicated across the country.

For that to happen, however, there are some key challenges to navigate:

• Funding would need to be flexible and ongoing.

• Housing regulations in each area would need to be flexible and evidence-based.

• Limited land availability means governments and communities would need to work together to make space for interim housing.

• Service providers would need to be trained in trauma-informed care to best help people transitioning from homelessness. One way of doing this is by mandating it in policy.

• The existing scarcity of affordable housing, coupled with low vacancy rates in rentals, makes it more likely residents end up homeless again after leaving interim programs.

Read more:
‘It’s soul-destroying’: how people on a housing wait list of 175,000 describe their years of waiting

Our study also found perceived competition within the housing sector between transitional and permanent housing programs. This, too, would need to be addressed.

Even with those challenges, the Independent Living Units Program provides a much-needed stepping stone into permanent housing.

With the right support, it could form part of the solution to the complex housing crisis.

Fiona Andrews received funding from the Geelong Community Foundation and the Lord Mayors Charitable Foundation

Deakin University has received funding from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Geelong Community Foundation for research into evaluating the transitional housing model known as ILUP. Richard Tucker led this project.

Anahita Sal Moslehian and David Giles do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Interim housing isn’t just a roof and four walls. Good design is key to getting people out of homelessness – https://theconversation.com/interim-housing-isnt-just-a-roof-and-four-walls-good-design-is-key-to-getting-people-out-of-homelessness-216160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Albanese government’s infrastructure review has recommended 82 projects should be cancelled, after finding the $120 billion program unsustainable in its current form.

Construction has not started on these projects. The review recommends the savings be used to provide “headroom” in the program which is facing a large cost overrun.

The review recommended 100 projects, not yet under construction, should go ahead, while a further 56, also unstarted, should proceed but on the basis that identified risks are addressed satisfactorily.

Thirty six projects, not under construction, should complete planning, detailed costings, and rescoping, with the allocated funding used for “headroom”, the review says.

The government says it accepts all the review’s recommendations in principle and will announce details on Thursday.

The review estimates a $32.8 billion cost blowout in the program, of which an estimated $14.2 billion is on projects not yet under construction.

The report says the ten-year pipeline of projects “cannot be delivered within the $120 billion allocation, even with current contributions from jurisdictions”.

“The Australian Government cannot afford within the current program settings, to meet the identified cost pressures, nor add any new projects for delivery to the pipeline in the next ten years, without significant changes taking immediate effect,” the report says.

Some projects “do not demonstrate merit, lack any national strategic rationale and do not meet the Australian Government’s national investment priorities.

“In many cases, these projects are also at high risk of further cost pressures and/or delays. A number of projects were allocated a commitment of Australian Government funding too early in their planning process and before detailed planning and credible design and costing were undertaken.”

The review says the federal government can cease or pause federal funding to projects, to create “headroom for reallocation to merit-based projects, to fund construction once planning, design and detailed costings are complete or to relieve some of the estimated cost pressures on current projects”.

The government says it will not cut the overall size of the A$120 billion program. It is committing extra funding for a number of projects.

The government has been in discussions with the states and territories over the revamping of the program, with the Queensland government – which faces an election next year – warning against cuts to its state.

Among the projects the government says it is maintaining are the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, the Milton Ulladulla Bypass, the Singleton Bypass, the Muswellbrook Bypass and the Tasman Bridge Upgrade.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Infrastructure review recommends culling 82 planned projects – https://theconversation.com/infrastructure-review-recommends-culling-82-planned-projects-217805

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Carson, Senior Research Fellow, School of Medicine, The University of Western Australia

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest global threats to health, food security and development. This month, The Conversation’s experts explore how we got here and the potential solutions.

As bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, more people will become infected and die of untreatable bacterial infections. By 2050, drug-resistant infections are predicted to kill ten million people a year.

So researchers are desperately seeking viable alternatives. One promising therapy uses specialised viruses called bacteriophages to invade and kill bacteria. They’re called “phages” for short.

This “phage therapy” has been used to treat antibiotic-resistant infections in small numbers of people who would have died without another way to kill the bacteria causing their infections.

But phage therapy is complicated, more complicated than prescribing antibiotics and picking up a script from the pharmacy.

Read more:
The rise and fall of antibiotics. What would a post-antibiotic world look like?

What is phage therapy?

In the wake of COVID, we’re all familiar with viruses that infect human cells. There are also viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages.

Just as viruses that infect humans only affect certain types of human cells, phages prefer to infect certain types of bacteria. MS2 phage, for example, can infect Escherichia coli (E. coli) and some related bacteria – but not all of them.

Often, phages infect bacteria and just remain there, existing within the bacterium.

Sometimes, phages infect bacteria with lethal consequences for the infected bacterium. This is what can be harnessed and turned into phage therapy.

If the right phage can be found, it can be delivered to the infection site (either intravenously, topically to the skin or by aerosol inhalation), where it will find, infect and kill the bacteria causing the patient’s infection.

Read more:
Viruses are both the villains and heroes of life as we know it

Since phages don’t infect and cause disease in humans, phage therapy selectively targets and kills the bacteria in the patient, and not the patient. An added bonus is phages leave other beneficial bacteria unaffected, unlike antibiotics.

So how is phage therapy prepared?

Before use, the right phage – capable of infecting the bacteria causing the infection – must be matched to target the infecting bacteria. This involves developing comprehensive phage libraries by isolating and selecting phages with the desired properties.

Fortunately, phages are everywhere – in soil, water, plants, animals and us. Finding and characterising them is straightforward, but takes time.

Successfully matching phage to the specific bacteria causing the patient’s infection requires lab technicians to isolate the bacteria first. This takes one to three days.

Then, the isolated bacterium is tested against hundreds of phages from the phage library to find one that can infect and kill that bacterium. The methods are slow, labour-intensive and take another few days.

Finally, when a phage that can kill the bacterium is identified, that specific phage, or a cocktail of multiple lethal phages, must be manufactured and administered to the patient.

Ironically, the unique advantages that make phage therapy a viable treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections bring challenges for treating lots of patients.

Testing for clinical efficacy is still under way

Before phage therapy can be approved for widespread use, it must meet the stringent safety and efficacy requirements. Efforts to achieve this for specific infections are currently underway in academic and commercial research settings.

In the meantime, phage therapy is available in the United States on an ad hoc basis for “compassionate use”. In Australia, a “special access scheme” provides limited access, with efforts to expand access underway.

Read more:
Do you think you have a penicillin allergy? You might be wrong

Individual instances of phage therapy have saved the lives of those who would otherwise have died. But while there is a growing body of research supporting the efficacy of phage therapy, well-designed clinical trials are needed to establish its effectiveness.

Manufacturing presents a number of challenges

Phages are biological products that require careful production and quality-control processes. Propagating phages in the lab is one thing, but preparing them to a standard that can be applied, ingested, instilled or even injected into patients is another.

Developing scalable and standardised methods for phage production, purification and formulation is essential to meet the demand for widespread use.

Phages are made up of DNA or RNA, protein, and sometimes fats (known as lipids), all of which can be compromised if exposed to unfavourable conditions.

Pharmaceutical preparations of phage need to be transported, stored and dispensed in ways that preserve their biological activity, which can vary tremendously.

Bacteria can become phage-resistant

Similar to antibiotics, bacteria can develop resistance to phages over time. This can occur through various mechanisms, such as the modification of bacterial surface receptors targeted by phages to gain entry to the bacteria.

Ways to minimise or overcome the development of resistance need to be explored to ensure long-term effectiveness. This includes using phage cocktails, staggered administration of single phages or combining phage therapy with other treatments.

Commercial viability

Antibiotics aren’t “one size fits all” for bacterial infections, but one antibiotic covers many infections and many different bacteria. Prescribing antibiotics takes moments, treatment can start right away, and they have a large and established industrial, commercial and regulatory framework surrounding them.

In contrast, the customisation involved in delivering phage therapy takes a lot of time, labour and resources. This could make phage therapy relatively expensive.

Read more:
Could new antibiotic clovibactin beat superbugs? Or will it join the long list of failed drugs?

To prepare bespoke phage preparations on demand, there must be a commercially viable and sustainable pathway to set up and maintain the infrastructure needed.

Much of the technology already exists to modernise, standardise and massively scale the phage therapy pipeline. With continued dedication, collaboration and investment, we have the potential to harness phage therapy as a tool in the fight against drug-resistant infections.

Read the other articles in The Conversation’s series on the dangers of antibiotic resistance here.

Christine Carson receives funding from the WA Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, and the CUREator program, a national biotechnology incubator delivered by Brandon BioCatalyst. She has a commercial interest in companies developing diagnostic tests, and preventing viral infections.

Lucy Furfaro receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and is associated with Phage Australia.

– ref. ‘Phage therapy’ could treat some drug-resistant superbug infections, but comes with unique challenges – https://theconversation.com/phage-therapy-could-treat-some-drug-resistant-superbug-infections-but-comes-with-unique-challenges-207025

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Skarbek, CEO, Climateworks Centre

Every bit of warming matters if we want to avoid the worst impacts for climate change, as the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows.

In 2020, we released modelling showing how Australia could get to net zero faster – and keep the Paris Agreement goal of holding warming to 1.5°C in play. Our new update shows this is still the case.

This week, we released our latest modelling based on cutting emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set an upper limit on warming of well below 2°C, with a commitment to strive for the lower harm limit of 1.5°C.

At present, the government’s 2030 goal is a 43% reduction from 2005 levels, with plans to set a further target for 2035 soon. Our new modelling of 1.5°C and well-below-2°C (1.8°C) pathways shows we must increase the pace of emissions cuts to between 48–66% for 2030 and 61%–85% for 2035.

This means Australia would reach net zero emissions by 2039, around a decade sooner than the current target of net zero by 2050. Our research shows this is possible.

So how do you actually do this?

In July, the government announced the development of net zero plans for six sectors: electricity and energy, industry, built environment, agriculture and land, transport and resources. Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently said the government is preparing an ambitious policy agenda with big spending on green industries to help cut emissions, and to grow the economy as reliance on gas and coal falls.

These plans are now under development. Our modelling of these sectors shows which ones must cut emissions fastest – and how to do it for the least cost.

Electricity: In these 1.5°C and well-below-2°C least-cost scenarios, the electricity sector reaches near zero between 2034 and 2038. Renewable energy is already the least-cost way to generate power. In turn, clean electricity can help decarbonise the rest of the economy.

Industry and resources: In our scenarios, industrial emissions fall by 42% (well-below-2°C) or 54% (1.5°C) by 2035. By 2050, they fall by 54% and 67% respectively. Earlier and faster electrification and uptake of hydrogen technologies through the 2020s and 2030s drives more emissions reductions in the 1.5°C scenario.

Buildings: Rapid emissions reductions in the building sector come from electrification and improvements in energy performance in both scenarios. Housing energy efficiency improves by 41% by 2050 compared to today’s levels.

Agriculture and land: Cutting emissions in line with the 1.5°C goal will require much more removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, mainly through sequestration in trees or soil. This can happen without damaging agricultural production.

How much CO₂ we need to pull from the air depends on our ambition. For the well-under-2°C scenario, we need to remove 1.4 billion tonnes (1.4 Gt). For 1.5°C, it’s 4.6 Gt. Farming emissions such as methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilisers will take longer to cut, as emissions per, say, kilogram of beef falls while production increases overall. Adding algae to livestock feed and rolling out slow and controlled-release fertilisers may help lower emissions here.

Transport: Without strong action on transport, emissions will keep growing. Both scenarios show minimal change in total transport sector emissions until 2030. That’s because steady increases in vehicle use as our population and economy grows will prevent overall reductions – even as people go electric.

Under both scenarios, the transport sector changes markedly. Electric vehicles (EVs) become dominant, making up 73% of new car sales under the 1.5°C scenario or 56% in the well-below-2°C scenario. Our modelling doesn’t account for the additional potential benefits of shifting trips from cars to public transport, or from road to rail freight.

Read more:
Australia finally has a Net Zero Authority – here’s what should top its agenda

For most sectors, net zero relies on clean electricity

Our modelling suggests it’s most cost effective for Australia to rapidly switch fossil fuel electricity to renewable sources and push beyond the current 82% clean energy target by 2030. We should instead aim for between 83 and 90%, and almost 100% by 2050.

Coal-powered electricity generation disappears before 2035 in our 1.5°C scenario, and by late 2030s in our well-below-2°C scenario. Gas-powered electricity falls sharply around the same time period.

By 2050, gas-fired power stations would contribute less than 1% of total generation, only firing up briefly to firm electricity supply to the grid.

Under both the 1.5°C and well-below-2°C scenarios, Australia’s electricity generation increases markedly. Renewable-powered electricity generation in 2030 would be greater than the total amount of electricity generated in 2020. By 2050, it is more than three times as great.

The rise of hydrogen for hard-to-tackle sectors

Support for green hydrogen has soared in recent years, both internationally and locally through government programs such as Hydrogen Headstart.

Why the change? Because of its potential uses in hard-to-green sectors. Industrial processes such as steelmaking rely on high temperatures. Traditionally coal has been used, but hydrogen is emerging as an alternative. It may have a role in transport, through fuel-cell vehicles, and to replace gas in those industries that rely on high-temperature heat.

Neither of our modelled scenarios show a role for hydrogen in buildings, passenger transport or short-haul freight. That’s because electrifying homes and using battery-electric vehicles is cheaper and more market-ready.

But our modelling shows hydrogen can play a role in industry, long-haul freight and maritime shipping – if it becomes commercially viable for these sectors.

In our scenarios, domestic hydrogen demand grows to between 383 and 465 petajoules by 2050 – around 12–16% of Australia’s energy demand.

Time is more precious than ever

Our latest analysis shows a 1.5°C least-cost pathway would see Australia reach net zero more than a decade earlier than the current goal of 2050.

If Australia and the rest of the world can cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals, a safer and more prosperous future awaits.

But it’s only possible if Australia acts quickly, builds on the momentum towards net zero and seizes the enormous opportunities offered in fast decarbonisation.

Read more:
The road is long and time is short, but Australia’s pace towards net zero is quickening

Anna Skarbek is on the board of the Centre for New Energy Technologies, the Green Building Council of Australia, Sentient Impact Group and the Asia-Pacific Advisory Board of the Glasgow Financial Alliance on Net Zero. She is a member of the Net Zero Economy Agency Advisory Board, the Grattan Institute’s energy program reference panel and the Blueprint Institute’s strategic advisory council.

Anna Malos and Michael Li do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How could Australia actually get to net zero? Here’s how – https://theconversation.com/how-could-australia-actually-get-to-net-zero-heres-how-217778

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Joy, Morgan Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Freshwater Ecology and Environmental Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The idea that we can mitigate current carbon emissions by “offsetting” them with carbon reduction initiatives elsewhere has become central to government and business responses to climate change. But it’s an idea we need to seriously question.

Essentially, the offsetting strategy assumes the release of carbon stored by ancient biology a hundred million years ago can be mitigated in the current active carbon cycle. Since the Kyoto protocol was signed, offsetting has become the preferred option globally.

The concept of “net zero” carbon emissions is also at the heart of New Zealand’s official climate response and its Emissions Trading Scheme.

How this might change under a new government is hard to predict, with the different positions held by the negotiating parties potentially leading to a “coalition of climate chaos”, according to one commentator.

At one level, net zero makes sense. Planting trees to mitigate the effects of forest clearance – or to provide shade, stabilise land and enhance biodiversity – means carbon in the atmosphere can be sequestered where it otherwise would not be.

But that doesn’t automatically mean the planet can absorb all the fossil carbon human industry continues to release. The idea that harm done in the present can be “offset” somewhere else in the future – something also seen in the field of freshwater ecology – cannot be taken at face value.

How the carbon cycle works

To put things in perspective, global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are currently around 10 billion tonnes per year. If we continue emitting at this rate, total fossil fuel emissions from now to 2050 will be about 280 billion tonnes – seven times larger than the maximum estimated biological carbon sequestration of 38 billion tonnes from 2015 to 2050.

Before humans began extracting fossil fuels, carbon cycled in a dynamic equilibrium: the total amount of carbon entering each carbon pool was balanced by the total amount of carbon leaving, so the amount of carbon stored did not change.

Read more:
A tonne of fossil carbon isn’t the same as a tonne of new trees: why offsets can’t save us

Then, beginning with coal and later oil and gas, carbon stored over millennia prior to 65 million years ago has been unlocked and released.

Despite its ancient origins, this fossil carbon is “new” carbon being added to the current active land-atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle. The reality is that the long-term storage of carbon in plants, soils, geologic formations and the ocean can only mitigate carbon from the current carbon cycle – not any extra fossil carbon.

While the carbon atom in the tree is the same as the carbon atom from burned fossil fuels, that’s where the similarity ends. The fossil carbon the tree is purportedly mitigating is a separate and additional source.

Planting a tree only mitigates the carbon lost from another tree that no longer exists (the one we chopped down, for example). Furthermore, planting trees to mitigate fossil carbon emissions commits future generations to locking up land as forests, to be maintained forever.

Read more:
Now we know the flaws of carbon offsets, it’s time to get real about climate change

This comes with many risks, including wildfires and storm damage driven by droughts and rising temperatures. The resulting feedback loop of weather extremes caused by climate change can limit and even halt carbon sequestration in forests.

Planting forests to mitigate this means the land is then not available for possibly better uses, including food production. Even so, the world is currently removing trees at double the rate they are being replanted.

Read more:
Forests can’t handle all the net-zero emissions plans – companies and countries expect nature to offset too much carbon

The carbon trading trap

The now ubiquitous notion of “net zero” emissions is at best a delaying tactic, at worst a form of self-delusion, because it justifies allowing more fossil carbon to be released unabated.

In New Zealand, this translates into subtracting the carbon sequestered by forests planted since 1990 from total emissions – giving a false impression they are 27% lower than they actually are.

After subtracting the carbon sequestered from the total emissions, the remainder is labelled “net emissions” – even though every tree planted replaced a preexisting tree, so no fossil emissions were balanced out.

The trading of fraudulent carbon credits has been an issue in the past, as has been the sale of “phantom credits”. Overall, it has been shown that “offset credits traded on the market today do not represent real emissions reductions”.

But the underlying assumption that we can mitigate fossil carbon in the current carbon cycle persists. This is despite New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission making it clear the addition of fossil carbon to the atmosphere is effectively permanent on human timescales.

More trees alone won’t work

On top of natural sequestration strategies, there are also technological carbon capture and storage techniques being promoted. However, these require large amounts of energy, have been shown to be extraordinarily expensive, and have limited potential. Most attempts so far have failed.

Also, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has noted, the carbon captured through such technologies will not necessarily be permanent. Crucially, the net energy return for fossil fuels – that is, the energy they supply versus the energy it costs to extract them – is already in sharp decline.

Any carbon capture system will significantly accelerate that decline. According to the IPCC, 13-44% of the energy obtained from extracting fossil fuels would be lost in the form of the energy required for the process of carbon capture.

The notion that the planet can achieve a net-zero equilibrium without fundamental economic and social change only serves to delay the inevitable.

Even if the entire country or planet were replanted in trees, it would at best soak up a decade’s worth of current emissions.

Deforestation has to be reversed, and more trees must be planted to sequester the carbon emitted through past land-use changes. But planting trees instead of stopping fossil emissions is not the answer. Planting trees as well as not emitting fossil carbon is the only solution.

Mike Joy receives funding from The Environmental Law Initiative.

– ref. We’re burning too much fossil fuel to fix by planting trees – making ‘net zero’ emissions impossible with offsets – https://theconversation.com/were-burning-too-much-fossil-fuel-to-fix-by-planting-trees-making-net-zero-emissions-impossible-with-offsets-217437

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie P. Smith, Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University

The Australian Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce delivered a major report last month drawing attention to what it called the “motherhood penalty” – the 55% cut in earnings for Australian women in the first five years after having a child.

The report makes many good recommendations, including extending paid parental leave to 52 weeks and providing universal high-quality affordable early childhood education.

Yet it mentions “birth” only twice, and “breastfeeding” not at all.

Shying away from the reality that women breastfeed is in some ways unsurprising. Breastfeeding is divisive because it cuts across what some see as the most important goal for women’s empowerment – gender equity in unpaid work and the care of children, including infants.

Most care work can be reallocated

Women everywhere do disproportionate amounts of unpaid or informal work, meaning they generally work longer hours and have less time for rest and leisure than men.

In Australia, women spend 3.4 hours per day on “domestic duties”, whereas men put in 2.6. The gender gap widens for those with young children, where work intensity increases with multitasking.

The approach the Taskforce report adopts is a standard one to “recognise, reduce, and redistribute” the care work done by women.

But in a paper just published in Frontiers in Public Health we argue that breastfeeding is different from other care work: it can’t be redistributed, and shouldn’t be reduced.

Breastfeeding is an exception

We contend that breastfeeding ought to be recognised as a special category of “sexed” care work that should be supported rather than reduced or reallocated to others. We argue that to undermine women’s breastfeeding is profoundly sexist.

Thus, programs such as those put forward by Australia’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce should be assessed on their impact on women’s and children’s ability to breastfeed as well as on their impact on pay and employment.

It means breastfeeding ought to be counted as non-market production in the national accounts so that when assessments are made of productivity, or of what increases or decreases in gross domestic product, breastfeeding is seen as productive.

At present, a drop in breastfeeding rates that leads to increased commercial formula sales is counted as an increase in measured GDP – making it look as if it has made society better off. The cost to women’s health, children’s health and development and the environment is ignored.

Read more:
The National Breastfeeding Strategy is a start, but if we really valued breast milk we’d put it in the GDP

Breastmilk is a traded and valuable product, sold for an official price of US$100 (A$154) per litre in Norway’s human milk banking system.

The Mothers’ Milk Tool developed at the Australian National University is a step toward counting breastfeeding in the national food supply, as Norway does, and making it easy to calculate the value of the milk mothers and countries produce in gross domestic product (GDP).

An improved Australian time-use survey would also make it easier to count the productive value of this unpaid care work officially for the first time.

Critical for good health

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding children in all country settings for two  years or more, and exclusively for the first six  months.

Global estimates suggest that infants not being breastfed as recommended is responsible for at least 595,400 deaths of children each year (mainly from infectious diseases and malnutrition).

Even in high income countries like Australia, lack of breastfeeding is responsible for a large proportion of infant hospitalisations.

It has also been calculated that a worldwide 99 000 deaths of women (mainly from breast cancer, ovarian cancer and type II diabetes) occur each year as a result of shortened breastfeeding duration.

Nearly all Australian women start out breastfeeding, but cite barriers to continuing beyond a few months, and “return to work” is a prominent reason.

Breastfeeding at work is possible, but difficult.

Even where paid leave is available, women returning to work find it difficult to keep breastfeeding. Substituting formula for breastmilk is common, as bringing baby to mother or bottling expressed breastmilk for feeding at another location requires extra planning, dedication and time.

Where workplaces don’t support breastfeeding, women who attempt it run the risk of being marked down and suffering in pay and promotion.

Extending parental leave to fathers can help, but not where it is taken separately to leave for mothers or in place of leave for mothers.

Women are consistently persistent in wanting to care for their babies. When Norway increased the number of paid weeks available exclusively to fathers at the expense of paid weeks available to either mothers or fathers in 2018, mothers took less paid leave and more unpaid leave, potentially worsening their financial situations and pay equity.

So-called “use-it-or-lose-it” paid leave available exclusively to fathers is often promoted as a way of getting new mothers back to their jobs while encouraging men to take up care work, but in practice it appears not to result in any meaningful change in the balance of unpaid work.

In contrast, leave that gives fathers time to undertake domestic and care work alongside mothers, including as single days, benefits women, reducing the need for hospitalisations and anti-anxiety medications. Initiatives that encourage fathers to support breastfeeding can help too.

Brushing it under the carpet won’t help women

It’s unsurprising the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce has entitled its report a 10-year plan to unleash the full capacity and contribution of women to the Australian economy.

It was asked to examine issues including the gender pay gap and women’s workforce participation.

But unless the women it wants to participate in the paid workforce can breastfeed while doing it, its recommendations might not advance their interests.

The contribution that women make through breastfeeding is important. Brushing it under the carpet as part of a drive for equality in paid work harms them, their children and society more generally.

Roger Mathisen, director of Alive and Thrive East Asia Pacific, contributed to this article.

Julie P. Smith has received relevant funding from the Australian Research Council and Alive and Thrive South East Asia Pacific. She is a qualified breastfeeding counsellor and an honorary member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Catherine Pereira-Kotze has received funding from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Food Security (through the University of the Western Cape, South Africa) and is a consultant for Alive and Thrive East Asia Pacific. She is a Registered Dietitian with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and currently working for First Steps Nutrition Trust in the UK.

Karleen Gribble’s work in this area was supported in part by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation to FHI Solutions’ ‘Women’s Nutrition: An Integrated Policy and Advocacy Agenda.’ Karleen is an Australian Breastfeeding Association breastfeeding counsellor and educator.

– ref. We won’t get real equality until we price breastmilk, and treat breastfeeding as work – https://theconversation.com/we-wont-get-real-equality-until-we-price-breastmilk-and-treat-breastfeeding-as-work-216623

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies, RMIT University

In 2020, Stan announced its endeavour to produce 30 original series filmed in Australia over the next five years.

A particular focus of the network is crime productions. Scrublands is just the latest, joining Black Snow (2023) and The Tourist (2023), in addition to remaking the popular Australian feature films Wolf Creek (2016) and Romper Stomper (2018).

Scrublands is also on familiar ground, joining several other adaptations of small town Australian crime novels like Peter Temple’s Broken Shore (written in 2005 and adapted in 2013) and Jane Harper’s The Dry (written in 2016 and adapted in 2020).

In his original novel, Chris Hammer masterfully presents an epic tale of a dying town. He meticulously details its struggles where the op-shop opens only twice a week, the hotel shuts down and the Black Dog Motel is the sole accommodation, with a strict “no animals allowed” policy.

With a backdrop rooted in the author’s non-fiction work on the Murray-Darling Basin – The River (2010), The Coast (2012) – Hammer weaves a crime novel that peels back the layers of fictitious Riversend, a New South Wales town grappling with economic decline, drought and the trauma of a devastating massacre just 12 months earlier.

As with the novel, this horrific and inexplicable traumatic act is where Greg Mclean’s gripping series begins.

Read more:
Black Snow, a new pacy murder mystery, addresses the complicated legacy of slavery in Australia

Secrets and suspicion

In the town’s country church, Father Byron Swift (Jay Ryan), donned in white and purple robes, unexpectedly emerges with a rifle in hand. He commits a shocking act by opening fire on parishioners, resulting in the deaths of five men.

The clergyman is subsequently shot in self-defence by the local police officer, Robbie Haus-Jones (Adam Zwar), setting the stage for the unfolding saga of Scrublands.

It is a town full of secrets and suspicion of outsiders. The series follows burnt-out journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold) arriving 12 months later with a seemingly simple mission: to craft a human interest narrative on the aftermath of the mass shooting. His Sydney-based editor (Nicholas Bell) urges him to investigate how Riversend is faring one year after the horrific act.

The suspenseful narrative unfolds gradually across each episode, exposing the town’s hidden truths and pulling Scarsden deeper into the web of lies and secrets that have come to define this drought-stricken town.

All of the performances are strong, but Bella Heathcote who plays the grieving Mandy Bond is the standout.

As the audience is literally shown whodunit in this opening scene – replayed from different perspectives across the series – it is not a whodunit as much as a “howcatchem”.

A howcatchem is a crime narrative where the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The case then follows as the detective begins a hunt to restore the moral world by bringing justice to the community.

Scrublands offers a variation to this howcatchem sub-genre. The perpetrator is not at large but dead. The why of his violence, however, remains unsatisfactorily unanswered – and Scarsden intends to find out.

An immersive story

Further variations to the expected crime narrative continue with the victims being grown men rather than young women. Was the priest killing at random? Were his victims a calculated selection?

As Scarsden navigates the intricacies of Riversend, director McLean offers an expansive portrayal of the town. This gives viewers time to immerse themselves in the environment and multifaceted characters.

The story unfolds with a deliberate steady pace, allowing McLean to continue his interest in rural landscape stories (Wolf Creek, Rogue) where he has more recently branched beyond just Australia through international co-productions including Jungle (2017), set in the Amazon rainforest, and The Darkness (2016) about a family that visits the Grand Canyon.

The show is most successful through its links to rural crime noir with the emphasis on pulling apart the vulnerability and deception of this small town. All of these somewhat innocent characters are complicit in the criminality that was allowed to corrupt the town.

Scrublands is produced by Easy Tiger, the company behind adapting the Peter Temple Jack Irish novels for the ABC. Similarly, this is a detective story about a non-law-enforcement protagonist who has to rely on his own instincts rather than police intel.

Besides, the police here are just as suspicious as the crims being pursued.

The series builds at a nice tempo before the truth is finally revealed. Secrets are exposed, but nobody is less traumatised by the conclusion – including journalist Scarsden, whose own haunted past is equally exposed.

Hammer’s second novel, featuring the same protagonist, was the more impressive Silver (2019). There is another ready-made source work if Scrublands is renewed for a second series.

Scrublands is on Stan from today.

Read more:
Roald Dahl, time-bending crime, and queer pirate comedy: the best of streaming this November

Stephen Gaunson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Scrublands: not a whodunit but a ‘howcatchem’, a new suspenseful Aussie inversion of the genre – https://theconversation.com/scrublands-not-a-whodunit-but-a-howcatchem-a-new-suspenseful-aussie-inversion-of-the-genre-217365

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Last week the High Court ruled that holding high-risk asylum seekers in indefinite detention was unconstitutional. As a consequence of the court decision, more than 80 people, some of whom were convicted of serious crimes including murder and rape, have been released. The government is now expected to rush in legislation to deal with the fallout.

In this podcast, Liberal senator and Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security James Paterson joins The Conversation to discuss the High Court’s ruling, his concerns about increasing anti-Semitism across the country, the rising cyber risks, and Australia’s future relations with China.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: James Paterson on the High Court’s decision on detention and rising anti-Semitism – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-james-paterson-on-the-high-courts-decision-on-detention-and-rising-anti-semitism-217808

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nataliya Ilyushina, Research Fellow, Blockchain Innovation Hub, RMIT University

On November 4, X owner Elon Musk unveiled his new AI chatbot Grok: a sarcastic ChatGPT alternative supposedly “modelled” after The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one of Musk’s favourite books.

The verb Grok means “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with”. Science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein first coined the term, which is now used by people in the computer science industry.

According to xAI, another company in Musk’s diversified technology portfolio, Grok “is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humour!”

Grok is built on a large language model (LLM) in much the same way as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and is being positioned as a potential rival.

Although Grok isn’t available to the general public yet, the beta version has been released to a small group of testers and some of X’s Premium+ subscribers. However, Musk said access would be granted according to the length of the Premium+ membership, which suggests new subscribers will have to wait.

If you’re impatient, a number of Grok’s “witty” interjections have made their way to X feeds. What stands out the most is just how foulmouthed the chatbot is programmed to be.

Is there any benefit to having a chatbot of this nature? And why might have Musk taken this approach?

AI with a ‘rebellious streak’

Musk has tweeted a number of his interactions with Grok, which has provided no shortage of snarky responses. Several other early adopters have also shared their experiences.

While some of Grok’s answers seem as good as other chatbots’ outputs, some are poorer. For example, one user reported Grok was unable to provide a news summary and analysis when asked about the United States’ off-year elections on November 7. Instead, it went through recent tweets on the topic.

This may be because Grok is still an early beta product. It had reportedly been through about two months of training at the time it was launched.

Although Grok is meant to be modelled after Douglas Adams’ 1979 satirical novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, critics have been quick to point out there’s little similarity between the chatbot and the characters and humour that made Adams’ book a worldwide success.

Nevertheless, Grok stands out for a number of reasons. Its essence lies in a perpetual satire and jest, which users are invited to relish.

It’s also willing to, as xAI put it, “answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems”. This trait has proven to be effective in making Grok go viral.

Early posts from users show it enthusiastically engaging in conversations about sex, drugs and religion, which other chatbots such as Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard would refuse to do.

Learning from tweets

It’s not clear how Grok’s style will affect its practical use. While it does slightly outperform ChatGPT 3.5 on mathematical and multiple-choice knowledge tests, there don’t seem to be examples of how it would perform when asked to write a professional report or email, wherein humour would be inappropriate.

Grok has real-time and direct access to posts on X, along with standard training datasets. In other words, its responses are based on the content of a platform that has been heavily criticised for enabling hate speech and being poorly moderated since Musk’s takeover last year.

Since AI chatbots are largely reflective of the quality of their training data (and additional human feedback training), Grok could end up adopting the myriad biases and problematic traits inherent in X’s content. This would lead to safety risks, including the spread of harmful ideas and misinformation, a concern that’s commonly cited by experts calling for AI regulation.

While ChatGPT now has real-time access to the internet, it also trains on a separate dataset called Common Crawl. This allows developers to have more control of what goes in the chatbot’s “brain”.

According to xAI:

A unique and fundamental advantage of Grok is that it has real-time knowledge of the world via the X platform.

But this could also mean much less filtering of the content that goes into and comes out of Grok.

Why does Grok exist?

Controversially, Grok was launched just days after the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom, where 27 countries signed the Bletchley declaration towards mitigating the risks of AI.

Musk also participated in the summit. In fact, just hours before his flight to the UK, he spoke about how AI might pose an existential risk to humanity if it becomes “accidentally anti-human”.

Yet, a few days after discussing these risks and taking part in an AI summit, Musk releases an AI tool that disregards all the premises of safety engraved in the Bletchley declaration.

However, he may not see it that way. In an interview with Joe Rogan, Musk said he bought X (then Twitter) to fight the “woke mind virus” and “extinctionists” who “view humanity as a plague on the surface of the Earth”.

Training Grok to be politically correct, he said, is the risk itself – and this is why he wanted to develop a chatbot that says what it “thinks” (or rather, what the average user thinks).

That would make Grok the AI chatbot version of the “average Joe” on X. It’s hard to say whether, in the grand scheme of things, the majority of people need or even want such a tool. But we should certainly consider the safety risks it may pose.

In the meantime, at least Grok has a more comprehensive answer to the meaning of life than “42”.

Nataliya Ilyushina receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence.

– ref. Grok is Elon Musk’s new sassy, foul-mouthed AI. But who exactly is it made for? – https://theconversation.com/grok-is-elon-musks-new-sassy-foul-mouthed-ai-but-who-exactly-is-it-made-for-217284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Bird, DIscipline Leader, Corporate Governance & Senior Lecturer, Swinburne Law School, Swinburne University of Technology

Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin is set to front a Senate inquiry this week, probing last week’s colossal outage which left millions stranded without internet or mobile phone connectivity for a staggering 14 hours.

The company has faced severe criticism for its handling of the outage, including for its lack of urgency in updating the public.

Loss of trust and confidence aside, if the national outage has taught us anything, it is there are real dangers in leaving the management of critical national infrastructure to a 100% privately owned company, in this case, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Limited, or Singtel as it is better known.

As a private company, Optus has no legal obligations to report publicly on its financial statements or governance arrangements, unlike its competitor, Telstra Ltd. They don’t even have to report to government, despite holding a licence to be a carrier under federal legislation.

Optus is the second largest supplier after Telstra of national carrier infrastructure in Australia. Its services are critical to the operation of our economy and community wellbeing. An illustration of this was the failure of the emergency 000 service during the outage. People with Optus couldn’t contact emergency services for up to 14 hours.

The obligations of listed companies

If Optus was a publicly listed company, like Telstra, it would have to comply with the listing rules of the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). This means it would have to disclose any information that could reasonably be expected to affect the price or value of the entity’s shares.

An unexplained system-wide outage of carrier services would arguably warrant this. If these rules applied to Optus, it would have had to issue regular market updates on developments during the outage. The odd, unannounced phone call by the Optus CEO to a radio program would be unsatisfactory.

A quick review of the Optus website’s “About Us” section suggests a number of apparent shortcomings. Contrary to the recommendations of the ASX corporate governance rules not a single member of the Optus executive board of directors qualifies as an independent director, that is, a director with no apparent ties to the company.

The idea of the independent director is to help a company board break out of its group think. In a crisis, for example, this would mean asking hard questions of executive management. While ASX governance rules technically only apply to public companies, they are a role model for all corporates, including large proprietary companies like Optus.

No details of the company’s risk-management arrangements are given either, including the chief risk officer. This is extraordinary for a company whose recent history (cyber hack, system outage) shows its exposure to extremely high levels of risk.

There are also no details of who monitors the executive management of Optus. It is important to see this for what it is – Optus devolves its corporate governance responsibilities to Singtel and runs a very lean operation in Australia.

This is seemingly good for Optus from a cost management viewpoint, but bad for Australia because we are leaving the governance of critical national infrastructure to a company with no direct accountability to the public and minimal accountability to the federal government.

Poorly prepared for a crisis

The absence of a comprehensive crisis management plan was obvious during last week’s outage. Despite experiencing a wide-scale cyber hack in 2022 Optus seemed ill-prepared to handle the system outage. You have to ask: why wasn’t a plan prepared well in advance of any such crisis?

Crisis management should entail a communication hierarchy and a systematic response. It is a key part of a company’s risk management system. This means knowing who needs to be notified and when to notify them. Presumably, high on that list would be the government. Instead, Bayer Rosmarin phoned radio programs revealing snippets of information in an ad-hoc way.

As part of crisis management, system fixes should be prioritised and companies obliged to tell the public the order in which these will be tackled. For example, the first fix should be health and hospital services. This did not happen. Instead, the absence of a clear plan only fuelled public anger.

Optus likes to control the narrative

Optus likes to tightly control its communication narrative. It refused to publicly release the Deloitte report on its 2022 cyber hack, until late last week when it was ordered to make it available to litigants in a class action.

Similarly, the chief executive was reluctant to explain the current system outage, effectively asserting that there was no point until they had “bottomed out the root cause” and could make it more digestible to the public.

Optus held all the power, yet when it did finally explain the failure days later, it was described as caused by a system upgrade and a failure of routers. Hardly more digestible than the system failure we already knew it to be.

In an increasingly digitised world, technology failures and system outages have become a fact of life. ASX Ltd, the licensed operator of Australia’s equity market, experienced a bad one in 2022, known as the collapse of the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System replacement project.

Knowing less than we would like

We know more about that failure than we will ever know about the Optus crisis because the ASX is a public company and was required to make continuous disclosure to the market.

In addition, ASX is also accountable for the management and governance of its critical infrastructure on an annual basis under licence arrangements overseen by the Reserve Bank and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission .

Like Optus, these failures have been the subject of hearings before parliament. However, there are no equivalent accountability requirements for Optus. Surely, the national telecommunications infrastructure managed by Optus is every bit as important as ASX’s clearing house infrastructure?

It is time to ask what accountability mechanisms should be in place for companies like Optus, whether they are enough and who watches over them. Where are the yearly assessments of that infrastructure by government agencies? The Senate inquiry, which was announced the day after the outage, will hopefully tackle these issues with the serious attention they deserve.

Helen Bird is a member of ASIC’s corporate governance panel. She has received funding from the Criminology Research Council and the Australian Research Council in the past.

– ref. The Optus outage shows us the perils of having vital networks in private hands – https://theconversation.com/the-optus-outage-shows-us-the-perils-of-having-vital-networks-in-private-hands-217660

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Madden, PhD Candidate and Research Program Officer, University of Sydney

The debate on how to combat social media misinformation is as relevant as ever. In recent years, we’ve seen medical misinformation spreading alongside COVID, and political misinformation impacting the outcome of elections and national referendums.

Experts have largely placed the impetus to stop misinformation on three groups: social media users, government regulators, and social media platforms themselves.

Tips for social media users include educating themselves on the subject, and being aware of the tactics used to spread misinformation. Government bodies are urged to work together with social media platforms to regulate and prevent the spread of misinformation.

But all of these approaches depend on social media content we can easily recognise as “reliable”. Unfortunately, our new study just published in The Journal of Health Communication shows reliable content is not easy to find. Even we – researchers and subject matter experts – struggled to identify the evidence base of the social media posts we analysed.

Based on our findings, we have developed new guidelines to help experts create engaging content that also clearly communicates the evidence behind the post.

Read more:
Misinformation, disinformation and hoaxes: What’s the difference?

What did our study find?

We collected and analysed 300 mental health research-related X (formerly Twitter) posts from two large Australian mental health research organisations, posted between September 2018 and September 2019. We chose this timeframe to avoid the influence of recent major events like the Australian bushfires (starting November 2019) or the COVID-19 pandemic (starting March 2020) on our findings.

We assessed the written content within each individual post, whether the post contained hashtags, mentions, hyperlinks and multimedia, and whether the post featured an evidence-based source, such as a peer-reviewed journal article, conference presentation, or clinical treatment guidelines.

We found it was challenging to reliably establish the evidence behind the posts. Our team agreed on whether a post contained evidence-based information only 56% of the time. These chances are not much better than a coin flip.

When people with years of relevant training can’t reliably identify evidence-based content, how can we expect everyone else to?

Although some posts appeared to be evidence-informed (for example, a researcher commenting on their area of expertise), the source of their statement was unclear in the majority of posts.

This raises further questions about the distinction between misinformation or disinformation, and “poor quality information”. We would argue the latter happens when the level of evidence supporting a post is not recognisable even to those trained in the field.

While some posts contained links to evidence-based sources, such as peer-reviewed papers, most contained expert opinions only, such as news articles. To judge how reliable this content is, a user would need to put in significant extra work – reading resources thoroughly and following up on sources.

It’s not realistic to ask social media users to do this, especially when peer-reviewed sources use complex, technical language and often require payment to access.

Read more:
Removing author fees can help open access journals make research available to everyone

How can researchers communicate evidence-based content?

Academics are encouraged to translate their research for the public, but there is limited guidance on how to balance audience engagement with evidence-based information.

As part of our study, we aimed to create simple, evidence-based guidelines for researchers, on how to effectively disseminate mental health research via X. For example, we found that researchers can boost engagement by emphasising the specific population group the research relates to (for example LBGTIQA+ or culturally diverse communities) and by using images and videos.

Our guidelines encourage experts to create engaging content that also clearly communicates “what” the information is, “where” the information is from, and “who” the information is for.

We outlined five main points:

What do I say?

1. tell the audience what the information is, and where it came from

2. tell your audience who you’re speaking to

How do I say it?

3. use media that adds to the post, expanding on what the information is and where it came from

4. use hyperlinks to verify research information in the post

5. minimise over-use of hashtags.

We also created mock “before and after” posts inspired by the posts from the study dataset, which outline the use of the guidelines in practice.

The recent increased focus on tackling online misinformation points to a hopeful future for information quality on social media platforms. But we still have a long way to go to promote evidence-based research in an accessible manner.

Research organisations and experts have a unique opportunity to show leadership in this area. Academics can add their voices to the public discourse as trusted and reliable sources of content people want to engage with – all while maintaining research integrity.

Additionally, in today’s world where health information is often promoted, shared and re-shared by everyone, these guidelines also provide useful tips to help anyone share clear and reliable information, and empower people to effectively navigate health information on social media.

Read more:
More stick, less carrot: Australia’s new approach to tackling fake news on digital platforms

Louise Thornton receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council

Erin Madden and Katrina Prior do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Even experts struggle to tell which social media posts are evidence-based. So, what do we do? – https://theconversation.com/even-experts-struggle-to-tell-which-social-media-posts-are-evidence-based-so-what-do-we-do-217448

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney

In an era where chronic pain affects millions worldwide, the search for effective and safe pain relief has never been greater.

PanaNatra is a line of herbal products from Haleon, the makers of Panadol. Haleon claims the three PanaNatra’s products, made from plant extracts, help manage and provide relief from mild joint aches, mild muscle pain, and mild pain affecting sleep.

They contain different combinations of four plants:

• Boswellia serrata (contained in the joint and muscle products)
• Curcuma longa (in the joint and muscle products)
• Piper nigrum (just in the joint product)
• Withania somnifera (just in the sleep product).

These products are “listed medicines” in Australia. This means the ingredients are considered broadly low risk, have been used in traditional medicine, and are manufactured to a high standard. But the manufacturer has not provided evidence to the government regulator that they work.

So can herbal ingredients effectively and safely relieve different types of pain?

What does the evidence say?

Let’s consider the evidence for the four main ingredients.

Boswellia serrata

Indian Frankincense (Boswellia serrata) has been described in traditional Indian Ayurveda texts since the 1st century AD. Key active compounds derived from the gum resin of the tree called boswellic acids are thought to have anti-inflammatory effects.

The Boswellia serrata dry concentrate extract (Rhuleave K) used in the Muscle Pain product contains 50 mg of the herb per tablet, whereas the Joint Pain product includes 33.3 mg as a different formulation (Apresflex).

A review of various human clinical trials using a range of formulations of this herb supports its ability to reduce some types of pain and improve function in osteoarthritis. But a key finding of the study was that improvement only begins when Boswellia serrata is used continuously for four weeks and at a dose of at least 100–250 mg per day.

In a clinical trial, 100 mg daily of a Boswellia serrata gum-based product was found to reduce pain and improve physical functions for people with osteoarthritis.

Read more:
9 signs you have inflammation in your body. Could an anti-inflammatory diet help?

Curcuma longa

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has been used in Chinese and Indian medicine for at least 2,000 years. It contains a well-known chemical called curcumin, a natural compound used for its anti-inflammatory properties, especially for osteoarthritis.

Turmeric compounds such as curcumin are often combined with Boswellia serrata compounds to improve their anti-inflammatory effects to reduce pain.

A review of 16 different clinical trials found turmeric extracts were effective for knee osteoarthritis.

A similar conclusion was drawn from a review of 11 clinical trials which examined the use of curcuminoids (of which curcumin is one) for one to four months. It found curcuminoids had similar pain-relieving qualities as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory based drugs.

Read more:
These 5 foods are claimed to improve our health. But the amount we’d need to consume to benefit is… a lot

Piper nigrum

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) contains the chemical piperine, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

Piper nigrum is often added to curcumin products to improve the absorption of curcumin, as is the case with the PanaNatra Joint Pain product.

For musculoskeletal pain, a preliminary human trial that examined the effects of a 1,000 mg daily dose of Rhuleave K (the extract used in PanaNatra) found it was as effective as paracetamol.

But the study was not placebo-controlled and the dose of paracetamol given (1,000 mg per day) was below the recommended daily intake for pain relief.

Read more:
Knee pain: here’s why it happens and how you can fix it

Withania somnifera

Withania somnifera (also called Ashwagandha) has been used in traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years to reduce stress and ease inflammation.

One of the key chemicals appears to be withaferin A which interferes with the inflammatory signalling pathway.

PanaNatra’s Pain and Sleep product contains 300 mg per tablet of a Withania somnifera extract called KSM66.

A human trial found a daily 600 mg dose of Withania somnifera extract improved sleep quality and helped in managing insomnia.

In a separate trial, Withania somnifera was found to improve sleep quality, again when administered at a dose of 600 mg per day.

Read more:
From Ayurveda to biomedicine: understanding the human body

So what does this mean?

Whether, and how well, a herbal medicine works is largely dependent on the formulation (how it’s made and the extract used) and the dose provided. The same herb used in one formulation may result in a different outcome than a different formulation containing the same herb.

It’s also important to note that effectiveness for one type of pain does not mean a product will work for other types of pain.

Overall, similar herb extracts to those that have been included in the PanaNatra products do have some evidence that they work for pain and sleep. Whether they work for you will depend on a number of factors including the effectiveness of the PanaNatra formulation, how much you take, and the extent of your pain.

Are they safe?

PanaNatra needs to be used carefully by some patients.

Overall, there is insufficient human data to recommend any of these herbal ingredients in pregnancy or lactation. In fact there is some evidence that Withania somnifera may be unsafe to use in pregnancy, and other than the amounts commonly found in food, turmeric and its compounds are not considered safe to use in pregnancy either.

The herbs may also impact the effectiveness and safety of other medicines. For example, the blood levels of the cancer drug tamoxifen may be reduced when taken concurrently with turmeric supplements.

Withania somnifera has been associated with drowsiness and cases of liver toxicity.

Curcuma longa products, including formulations containing curcumin and piperine, have also been associated with liver toxicity. As such, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has proposed adding warning labels to any products that contain those ingredients. But this discussion is ongoing and a decision won’t be made until next year.

Bottom line

While there is a long history of traditional use of the herbs in the PanaNatra products, there is limited high-quality scientific evidence for the effectiveness and safety for these specific products.

Pregnant and breastfeeding women should not take these products, and you should not exceed the daily dose recommended by the manufacturer.

If you have an underlying health condition, or are taking other medication, before you try them, consult your doctor or pharmacist to check if these products are suitable for you.

Read more:
Do you know what’s in the herbal medicine you’re taking?

Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd a medical device company, and a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design, and testing.

Joanna Harnett is an academic University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Pharmacy School where she teaches and conducts research in the field of traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM). She has received research funds from universities, organisations, and/or industry for TCIM research and education and received payments for providing expert advice about TCIM to industry, government bodies and/or non-government organisations, and/or spoken at workshops, seminars and/or conferences for which registration, travel and/or accommodation has been paid for by the organisers.
The institutes, centres and universities associated with the authors receive research grants, donations and endowments from foundations, universities, government agencies, individuals, and industry. Sponsors and donors have provided untied funding to advance TCIM education and research. This viewpoint article was not undertaken as part of a contractual relationship with any donor or sponsor.

– ref. What is the PanaNatra line of painkillers and can herbal products effectively relieve pain? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-pananatra-line-of-painkillers-and-can-herbal-products-effectively-relieve-pain-216445

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C.J. Cabilan, Adjunct Lecturer, The University of Queensland

Violence against nurses is pervasive. They are more likely to experience physical violence than any other health-care professionals. Violence against nurses occurs in the context of violence against women, with 87.5% of Australia’s nursing workforce identifying as women.

Nurses report being punched, hit, struck, having objects or body fluids thrown at them, being kicked, grabbed, spat on, threatened, pushed, slapped, strangled, scratched, bitten, or sexually assaulted by patients. These actions are assault, which is a crime. In recent years Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory have implemented tougher penalties for those who assault nurses on the job as a deterrent.

But nurses don’t feel empowered or supported to report these crimes and patients are not being held accountable for their actions. Harsher penalties alone aren’t enough to protect nurses.

Read more:
Doctors are being sexually harassed at work. This needs to stop

Unhelpful responses from employers and police

We surveyed 275 nurses as part of our research. About 83% had been assaulted by patients. Around a third of the nurses in our study reported experiencing more than one form of assault.

But only about one in three assaulted nurses report attacks to the police. Nurses say the support they receive from their employers and police is generally poor, and they feel discouraged from proceeding with the reports they do make. Nurses said:

I felt like the decision was taken away from me and my management didn’t do anything in support of me.

I did not pursue charges as [there was] pressure from police to drop charges and no further support from my department in doing so.

Assaults still seen as ‘part of the job’

Nurses in our study spoke about how they see assaults as “part of the job”. As one said:

I was told to return to work as soon as I regained consciousness […] I had to look after the same patient because ‘there aren’t enough staff to replace you, and this is part of nursing […] There is only four hours left of your shift. Then you can go home and sleep it off’.

Another nurse said assaults were common:

[…] this sort of treatment from patients happens often and no one reports it. There’s this sort of culture that you just move on and get over it […] I have been physically and sexually assaulted a few times over the last year but not reported to police as I feel like I’m wasting time and resources and my claim isn’t important enough.

This self-limiting culture appears to be longstanding, and reinforced by substandard responses from their employer and police.

Nurses don’t report based on misconceptions

In our research nurses thought patients who are intoxicated or have a mental illness wouldn’t satisfy the requirement of a guilty mind (mens rea) required for conviction. Or that, they have to be physically hurt for assaults to be seen as an offence.

But patients who are intoxicated or have mental illness can be held accountable.

In legal terms, neither intoxication or mental illness equate to a lack of capacity to know what is right or wrong. And to say someone cannot be held responsible for their actions due to mental illness, can be seen as stigmatising or unjust. It is not up to a nurse, employer or police to decide a person’s mental capacity. Every person is to be presumed of “sound mind” unless proven otherwise during prosecution.

Another misconception is that nurses have to be physically hurt for assaults to be reported. As one nurse said:

I didn’t think that it was worth reporting it to the police as there was no visible harm done to me.

Harms from assault can be physical, emotional or psychosocial (impact on one’s thought and how they interact with others). However, assault is not characterised by its impact, but rather the act itself. A patient can be guilty of assault if they physically attack a nurse or if they threaten to do so.

Read more:
Aged care staff urgently need training to report and prevent sexual assault

Benefits of reporting to the police

Laws help set standards of what is right or wrong in society. To enforce the law, nurses must first report and make a statement to the police, so charges can be laid against a patient who commits violence. Police can then present this evidence to a prosecutor, who makes a decision if there is sufficient evidence for conviction.

Reporting to the police could have far-reaching impacts including:

• enforcing a culture of respect and safety, improved staff retention and wellbeing
• helping patients learn their rights to seek health care must be balanced with nurses’ rights to a safe workplace
• setting a consistent standard of acceptable behaviours in society that includes health-care settings.

Many nurses have been assaulted by patients, but only few are reporting to the police. Employers and authorities must work together to empower and support nurses to report assaults. It is through this collective effort that we can hold patients to account, and ultimately keep nurses safe from harm.

Read more:
Paramedics have one of Australia’s most dangerous jobs — and not just because of the trauma they witness

C.J. Cabilan received funding the PA Research Foundation to conduct this research. She currently serves as the Director of Occupational Violence Prevention and Management for Canberra Health Services. The views described in the article are her own based on evidence.

– ref. ‘I was told to return to work as soon as I regained consciousness.’ Why only a third of assaulted nurses report it to police – https://theconversation.com/i-was-told-to-return-to-work-as-soon-as-i-regained-consciousness-why-only-a-third-of-assaulted-nurses-report-it-to-police-217288

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Avenell, Professor in Modern Japanese History, Australian National University

In 2024, the youngest of Japan’s baby boomers will turn 75. The boomers are called the “bunched” generation in Japan because they were born in a short spurt in the late 1940s, in the aftermath of the end of the second world war.

The sheer size of this cohort has made it a lightning rod for many of the thorny social and economic debates in Japan today. Japanese boomers are variously criticised for generational wealth disparity, national debt, and even the environmental crisis.

Historically, the boomers’ experience is very much the story of Japan’s postwar success. But were the boomers just lucky free-riders? And how have they shaped contemporary Japan?

The children of war defeat

Japan was under US-led occupation and struggling with a tattered economy when the boomers were born. Millions of soldiers and settlers had flooded back from the colonies and battlefields. As the Japanese began to rebuild their nation, they also enthusiastically procreated. From 1947 to 1949, Japan recorded around 2.7 million births annually, with a fertility rate exceeding 4.3.

Never again would Japan witness such stunning fertility. Apart from a short-lived uptick in the 1970s, annual births have been declining precipitously.

In 2020, Japan recorded its lowest number of annual births at 840,835 with a fertility rate of just 1.33. This is not the lowest in Asia, but it is well beneath the replacement rate of 2.1.

The protest generation

Japan’s boomers were both the engines and beneficiaries of the country’s economic miracle of the 1950s to 1970s, when GDP growth regularly hit the double digits.

In an age when most youth finished education in their teens, the boomers provided labor for Japan’s heavy, chemical, automotive, and electronics industries. Many migrated to cities like Tokyo, taking up jobs in small factories and retail stores.

The small percentage of boomers lucky enough to enter universities in the 1960s became the flagbearers of youth protest. They rallied against Japan’s subservience to America and its involvement in the Vietnam War. They demanded universities lower fees and give students a greater voice.

Beyond protest, they fashioned new cultures in music and art. Indeed, they were actors in the great theatre that was the “global 1960s”.

As student protest descended into violence in 1970s Japan, public opinion turned against the young boomers. A handful embraced murderous left-wing terrorism, but the majority chose the safety of corporate Japan.

Read more:
Baby Boomers, be nice to your grandkids: they may save Australia

Boomers fashion Japan’s economic miracle

In 1975, the youngest of Japan’s boomers were in their mid-20s. Japan was recovering from a massive hike in oil prices in 1973 and would face another petroleum shock in 1979.

It was the hardworking boomers who sustained Japan through these troubled economic times. In an age of rigidly defined gender roles, boomer men became Japan’s corporate and industrial warriors, while boomer women raised children and cared for elderly parents. Accordingly, they orchestrated Japan’s second – and last – postwar baby boom in the 1970s.

When Japan emerged as an economic superpower in the 1980s, it was the boomers who reaped the rewards. Although not all benefitted equally, Japanese baby boomers, now in their 30s, enjoyed relatively secure employment, a thriving economy, and superior standards of living.

At the same time, as the economy surged, the boomers faced financial pressures in housing and education. Some even worked themselves to death inside Japan’s pressure-cooker corporations.

Nonetheless, things were good for the boomers during Japan’s “bubble” economy of the 1980s. By the end of the decade, the youngest were in their 40s. As mid-career workers, they could both save and spend – something later generations would only dream of.

Intergenerational tensions in recessionary Japan

Just as the boomers were moving into the middle echelons of society, Japan’s economic miracle ended abruptly. What followed from the 1990s onwards has been called Japan’s “lost decades”, an “ice age” of employment, and an era of youth uncertainty and despair.

The boomers, however, survived largely unscathed. Thanks to an employment system that protected senior workers, most (although not all) of the boomers retained their jobs while their children struggled to find even casual work. Many boomers also had savings to fall back on.

But in recessionary Japan, the now-ageing boomers raised thorny issues for the country. As a healthy, long-lived, and very large cohort, their approaching retirement in the 2000s threatened the viability of Japan’s already-strained pension and health schemes. Youth born in a post-bubble Japan are faced with carrying this burden.

Not surprisingly, intergenerational tensions have arisen. For the boomers, it is easy to label youth as lazy and lacking perseverance. For the young, boomers were simply lucky to be born in an era of growth. And, to make matters worse, now the young must support the boomers in retirement.

Ageing boomers in the oldest society

Given the electoral clout of the boomers, politicians are treading carefully around solutions involving redistribution from the old to the young. Ultimately, intergenerational blaming is not the solution.

Japan’s baby boomers were born into a nation rising, but they also helped to fashion that success. Youth can draw on the boomers’ journey from the ashes of defeat to stunning affluence. But the boomers must also recognise how their generation has contributed to the demographic and socioeconomic challenges facing Japan today.

As the world’s oldest society continues to age, intergenerational empathy from the boomers is now more important than ever.

Simon Avenell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Generational tensions flare as Japan faces the economic reality of its ageing baby boomers – https://theconversation.com/generational-tensions-flare-as-japan-faces-the-economic-reality-of-its-ageing-baby-boomers-217289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maarten De Brauwer, Research fellow, CSIRO

Figuring out what species live in an ecosystem, and which ones are rare or just good at hiding is an essential way to understand and care for them. Until now, it’s been very labour intensive.

But now we can do it differently. Take a sample from the ocean and match tiny traces of DNA in the water with the species living there.

It’s not science fiction – it’s environmental DNA sampling. This approach opens the door to rapid, broad detection of species. You can find if pest species have arrived, tell if a hard-to-find endangered species is still hanging on, and gauge ecosystem health.

Because eDNA testing is still new, there are questions about its strengths and weaknesses and how it can best be used. For instance, we can tell if extremely rare freshwater sawfish are present in a Northern Territory river – but not how many individual fish there are.

Today CSIRO released a roadmap created through consultation with many experts to show how eDNA technologies can be best integrated into marine monitoring at a large scale – and what the future holds.

How does eDNA sampling work?

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a very special molecule. It acts as the code for all life on Earth, holding the cellular instructions to make everything from a beetle to a human. Because DNA is unique to each species, it’s like a product barcode in a supermarket.

As animals and plants live their lives, they shed fragments of their DNA into their environment through dead skin, hair, saliva, scat, leaves or pollen. These traces make up environmental DNA. There’s enough DNA in water and even air to tell species apart.

The real power of eDNA sampling is how broad a net it casts. With one sample, we can detect anything living, from bacteria to whales, and in potentially every environment with life, from the deep sea to underground caves.

Read more:
Environmental DNA – how a tool used to detect endangered wildlife ended up helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic

Importantly, this method lets scientists detect species even if we can’t see or capture them. This comes in handy when working with rare or very small species, or when working in environments such as murky water where it is impossible to see or catch them. It will, for example, make it easier to study critically endangered pipefish in estuaries.

To date, much eDNA research has focused on detecting species in water, because it’s relatively easy to collect, concentrate and extract eDNA from liquids. But we now know we can produce species lists based on the eDNA in soil, scat, honey, or even the air.

How do scientists actually measure eDNA?

Typically, you collect samples, perform molecular analysis and interpret results.

Collect samples: Scientists collect a sample from the environment. This can be water, soil, or virtually any environmental substrate which might contain eDNA. We then process the sample to concentrate and stabilise the DNA. You might collect two litres of water with a bucket, filter it and then freeze or chemically stabilise the eDNA coating the filter.

Molecular analysis: The first step in the lab is to purify DNA from a sample. The next step depends on your goal. If you want to detect a single species, you would generally use a technique called quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), similar to how you test for COVID.

But to detect whole communities of species, you have to use high-throughput DNA sequencing. Where detecting a single species with eDNA takes only a few days days, completing the labwork for species communities can take weeks to months. At the end, you arrive at a long list of thousands or even millions of DNA barcode sequences.

Interpreting results: Single species interpretation is simple. Was DNA from your species of interest present or not? But when the goal is to identify multiple species, scientists use DNA reference libraries to link the DNA barcodes detected in the sample back to individual species.

This works well – but only if we already have the species listed in these libraries. If not, you can’t detect it with eDNA methods. That means eDNA can’t be used to detect new species or those only known from photos and videos.

Why does eDNA matter? Look at marine parks

Australia boasts one of the world’s largest and most biodiverse networks of marine parks. But as ocean life reels from climate change, overfishing and plastic pollution, it’s certain the oceans of the future will look very different to that of today.

Gauging impact to support evidence-based decisions across such a vast, diverse and remote area poses challenges difficult to solve with standard hands-on survey methods like like diving, video or trawling.

That’s where eDNA methods can help, offering a powerful, non-destructive, cost-effective and quick form of monitoring that can complement other techniques.

eDNA means we can fine-tune monitoring for specific purposes, such as detecting pests, endangered, or dangerous species.

This is just the start. Imagine a future where eDNA data could be collected from the most remote oceans by autonomous vehicles, analysed by the drone or on board a research vessel, and integrated with other monitoring data so marine managers and the public can see near-real time data about the condition of the ocean.

Science fiction? Not any more.

Read more:
You shed DNA everywhere you go – trace samples in the water, sand and air are enough to identify who you are, raising ethical questions about privacy

Maarten De Brauwer receives funding from the CSIRO and the National Geographic Society. He is a board member at the Southern eDNA Society.

Oliver Berry receives funding from the CSIRO, the Australian Government, and the Minderoo Foundation. He is a board member of the Southern eDNA Society (Australia and New Zealand’s professional society for eDNA scientists and other stakeholders).

– ref. It sounds like science fiction. But we can now sample water to find the DNA of every species living there – https://theconversation.com/it-sounds-like-science-fiction-but-we-can-now-sample-water-to-find-the-dna-of-every-species-living-there-216989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mona Krewel, Senior lecturer in Comparative Politics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The threat of disinformation on social media in the lead-up to New Zealand’s 2023 election loomed large for the Electoral Commission and academics studying fake news.

So how bad did it really get?

As part of the New Zealand Social Media Study, we analysed more than 4,000 posts on Facebook from political parties and their leaders. Our study focused on the five weeks ahead of election day.

What we found should give New Zealanders some comfort about the political discourse on social media. While not perfect, there was not as much misinformation (misleading information created without the intent to manipulate people) and disinformation (deliberate attempts to manipulate with false information) as everyone feared.

Looking for fake news and half truths

To identify examples of both of those, a team of research assistants analysed and fact-checked posts, classifying them as either “not including fake news” or “including fake news”.

Fake news posts were defined as completely or mostly made up, and intentionally and verifiably false.

An example of this type of disinformation would be the “litter box hoax”, alleging schools provided litter boxes for students who identified as cats or furries.

Originating from overseas sources, this story has been debunked multiple times. In New Zealand, this hoax was spread by Sue Grey, leader of the NZ Outdoors & Freedoms Party.

Read more:
Social media can be information poison when we need facts most

In cases of doubt, or when the research assistants couldn’t prove the information was false, they coded the posts as “not including fake news”. The term “fake news” was therefore reserved for very clear cases of false information.

If a post did not include fake news, the team checked for potential half-truths. Half-truths were defined as posts that were not entirely made up, but contained some incorrect information.

The National Party, for example, put up a post suggesting the Ministry of Pacific Peoples had hosted breakfasts to promote Labour MPs, at the cost of more than $50,000. While the ministry did host breakfasts to explain the most recent budget, and the cost was accurate, there was no indication the purpose of this event was to promote Labour MPs.

How 2023’s election compared to 2020

At the beginning of the campaign, the proportion of what we identified as fake news being published on Facebook by political parties and their leaders was 2.5% – similar to what we saw in 2020.

The proportion of fake news posts then dropped below 2% for a long period and even fell as low as 0.7% at one point in the campaign, before rising again in the final stretch. The share of fake news peaked at 3.8% at the start of the last week of the campaign.

Over the five weeks of the campaign, we identified an average of 2.6% of Facebook posts by political parties and their leaders in any given week qualified as fake news. In 2020, the weekly average was 2.5%, which means the increase of fake news was minimal.

The sources of much of the outright fake news were parties on the fringes. According to our research, none of the major political parties were posting outright lies.

But there were posts from all political parties assessed as half-truths.

Half-truths stayed well below 10% during the five weeks we looked at, peaking at 6.5% in the final week. On average, the weekly share of half-truths was 4.8% in 2023, while in 2020 it was 2.5%.

So while the number of “big lies” – also known as “fake news” – did not increase in 2023 compared to 2020, the number of “small lies” in political campaigns is growing.

All of the political parties took more liberties with the truth in 2023 than they did in 2020.

Playing on emotions and oversimplifying

More than a third of all misleading posts in 2023 were emotional (37%), targeting voters’ emotions through words or pictures. Some 26% of the social media posts jumped to conclusions, while 23% oversimplified the topics being discussed. And 21% of the posts cherry-picked information, meaning the information presented was incomplete.

Some of the social media posts we identified as fake news or half-truths used pseudo-experts: people with some academic background, but who are not qualified to be expert witnesses on the topic under discussion (18%).

We also saw anecdotes of unclear origin, instead of scientific facts (15%), while 7% had unrealistic expectations of science, such as expecting science to offer 100% certainty.

Some of the posts included the claim that the posts’ authors had a silent majority behind them (5%). Another 5% of the social media posts identified as disinformation included personal attacks, rather than debating someone’s arguments.

Staying vigilant

The levels of misinformation and disinformation on social media during the past two elections in New Zealand have been fairly low – and certainly no cause for panic. But that doesn’t mean it will always stay that way.

On the one hand, we need to keep an eye on the social media campaigns in future elections and, in particular, monitor the development and use of misinformation and disinformation by political parties on the fringe.

Read more:
Beyond fake news: social media and market-driven political campaigns

We also need to keep eye on the major parties, as small lies might pave the way for more fake news or conspiracy theories in the future.

On the other hand, we need to resist overstating the use of misinformation and disinformation in New Zealand. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be the appetite to spread disinformation on social media by our major political parties or leaders.

This is a good thing for the health of our democracy, and we need to ensure it stays that way.

Mona Krewel is affiliated with the advisory panel to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to strengthen the country’s capacity to identify and address misinformation and disinformation. This article reflects her personal opinions as a researcher.

– ref. Fake news didn’t play a big role in NZ’s 2023 election – but there was a rise in ‘small lies’ – https://theconversation.com/fake-news-didnt-play-a-big-role-in-nzs-2023-election-but-there-was-a-rise-in-small-lies-216338

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quoc Phuong Tran, PhD Candidate in Prebiotic Chemistry, UNSW Sydney

How did life begin? How did chemical reactions on the early Earth create complex, self-replicating structures that developed into living things as we know them?

According to one school of thought, before the current era of DNA-based life, there was a kind of molecule called RNA (or ribonucleic acid). RNA – which is still a crucial component of life today – can replicate itself and catalyse other chemical reactions.

But RNA molecules themselves are made from smaller components called ribonucleotides. How would these building blocks have formed on the early Earth, and then combined into RNA?

Chemists like me are trying to recreate the chain of reactions required to form RNA at the dawn of life, but it’s a challenging task. We know whatever chemical reaction created ribonucleotides must have been able to happen in the messy, complicated environment found on our planet billions of years ago.

I have been studying whether “autocatalytic” reactions may have played a part. These are reactions that produce chemicals that encourage the same reaction to happen again, which means they can sustain themselves in a wide range of circumstances.

In our latest work, my colleagues and I have integrated autocatalysis into a well-known chemical pathway for producing the ribonucleotide building blocks, which could have plausibly happened with the simple molecules and complex conditions found on the early Earth.

The formose reaction

Autocatalytic reactions play crucial roles in biology, from regulating our heartbeats to forming patterns on seashells. In fact, the replication of life itself, where one cell takes in nutrients and energy from the environment to produce two cells, is a particularly complicated example of autocatalysis.

A chemical reaction called the formose reaction, first discovered in 1861, is one of the best examples of an autocatalytic reaction that could have happened on the early Earth.

In essence, the formose reaction starts with one molecule of a simple compound called glycolaldehyde (made of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen) and ends with two. The mechanism relies on a constant supply of another simple compound called formaldehyde.

A reaction between glycolaldehyde and formaldehyde makes a bigger molecule, splitting off fragments that feed back into the reaction and keep it going. However, once the formaldehyde runs out, the reaction stops, and the products start to degrade from complex sugar molecules into tar.

Read more:
Can bleach help solve the origin of life in the primordial soup?

The formose reaction shares some common ingredients with a well-known chemical pathway to make ribonucleotides, known as the Powner–Sutherland pathway. However, until now no one has tried to connect the two – with good reason.

The formose reaction is notorious for being “unselective”. This means it produces a lot of useless molecules alongside the actual products you want.

An autocatalytic twist in the pathway to ribonucleotides

In our study, we tried adding another simple molecule called cyanamide to the formose reaction. This makes it possible for some of the molecules made during the reaction to be “siphoned off” to produce ribonucleotides.

The reaction still does not produce a large quantity of ribonucleotide building blocks. However, the ones it does produce are more stable and less likely to degrade.

What’s interesting about our study is the integration of the formose reaction and ribonucleotide production. Previous investigations have studied each separately, which reflects how chemists usually think about making molecules.

Generally speaking, chemists tend to avoid complexity so as to maximise the quantity and purity of a product. However, this reductionist approach can prevent us from investigating dynamic interactions between different chemical pathways.

These interactions, which happen everywhere in the real world outside the lab, are arguably the bridge between chemistry and biology.

Industrial applications

Autocatalysis also has industrial applications. When you add cyanamide to the formose reaction, another of the products is a compound called 2-aminooxazole, which is used in chemistry research and the production of many pharmaceuticals.

Conventional 2-aminooxazole production often uses cyanamide and glycolaldehyde, the latter of which is expensive. If it can be made using the formose reaction, only a small amount of glycolaldehyde will be needed to kickstart the reaction, cutting costs.

Our lab is currently optimising this procedure in the hope we can manipulate the autocatalytic reaction to make common chemical reactions cheaper and more efficient, and their pharmaceutical products more accessible. Maybe it won’t be as big a deal as the creation of life itself, but we think it could still be worthwhile.

Read more:
We’ve been wrong about the origins of life for 90 years

Quoc Phuong Tran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Did this chemical reaction create the building blocks of life on Earth? – https://theconversation.com/did-this-chemical-reaction-create-the-building-blocks-of-life-on-earth-216843

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Ogloff, University Distinguished Professor of Forensic Behavioural Science & Dean, School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology

A new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on the health of people in Australian prisons makes for sobering reading.

It reveals that compared to the general population, people in prison have higher rates of mental health conditions, chronic disease, communicable disease, and acquired brain injury. This is despite the fact the prison population is relatively young.

This is a problem for everyone. Research shows mental health intervention and engagement helps reduce offending among offenders with serious mental illness.

Good health care in prisons, with continuity of community health care upon release, not only helps the person being treated. It also helps the community through reduced levels of offending.

Read more:
Good mental health care in prisons must begin and end in the community

The new report

Data were collected in 2022 from 371 people entering prison during a given two-week period, and 431 who were due to be released during the data collection period or in the following four weeks. The report includes information drawn from 73 of 87 prisons across Australia (excluding Victoria, which didn’t participate in the survey this year).

The researchers also collected data from 4,500 people who visited the prison health clinic and another 7,100 people who received medications while in prison.

According to the data, around one in two prison entrants reported a chronic physical health condition.

One in two prison entrants reported having been told they had a mental health condition, with almost one in five currently taking mental health related medication.

Around one in five prison entrants reported a history of self-harm.

Self-reported levels of distress were high:

The report also revealed:

• two-thirds of prison entrants reported they had previously been in prison

• around two in five younger prison entrants reported a family history of incarceration

• around two in five prison entrants reported having dependent children in the community

• nearly one in three prison entrants reported their highest level of schooling as year nine or under

• nearly one in two prison dischargees expected they would be homeless on release

• almost one in three prison entrants reported consuming at least seven standard drinks of alcohol in a typical day of drinking

• almost three in four prison entrants reported being current smokers.

Shocking, though unsurprising

As someone who has worked in prisons and researched prisoner health for more than three decades, I was sadly unsurprised by these grim findings. The results are largely consistent with previous reports and confirm people in custody have particularly high health needs.

It’s easy for us to lose sight of the health needs of people in prison while they are locked away.

A high percentage of people in prison are on remand pending trial and once sentenced most are back in the community relatively soon.

Once sentenced, most spend a relatively short time in prison, particularly those who commit low or medium-risk offences.

A high proportion of people cycle back into prison after release. There is very little continuity of care between health care in prison and in the community. The failures in the system help replicate disadvantage and leave the whole community worse off.

Why is the prisoner population generally in such poor health?

Many prison entrants are poorly educated, impoverished, come from families with an incarceration history, and experience homelessness.

They are also more likely than others in the community to have poor employment skills and histories, and to have experienced child abuse.

A disproportionate number of people in prison are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, a group that generally experiences significantly poorer health than the general community.

Recent evidence also shows many people in prison have poorer levels of health literacy than people in the general community. In other words, they may struggle to obtain, understand, and use information to make appropriate health decisions.

Why is this a problem for all of us?

Prisons are very much part of our community and most people are incarcerated temporarily. By enhancing the health care of people in prison and ensuring continuity of care to the community, we can reduce the costs associated with health care more generally. Investing early to improve the health of prisoners can save a lot of taxpayer money down the track.

And as some types of mental health conditions are related to a higher risk for offending, better health care can help enhance public safety.

Read more:
Victoria’s prison health care system should match community health care

What needs to be done?

We need to reassess how we think of prisons and those detained in them.

We have an opportunity to target people entering prisons to increase their health care and health literacy. Health care, and particularly mental health care, are critical ingredients in enhancing prisoners’ wellbeing, their health literacy and their continuity of care upon release.

All states screen detainees upon admission for health issues. And, encouragingly, the new report on prisoner health reveals almost three-quarters of prison dischargees rated the health care they received in the prison clinic as good or excellent.

But as good as they are, correctional health services cannot effectively overcome systems issues. Health care in prison is not enough to address health literacy, prevention of health problems, and continuity of care upon release.

Read more:
Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only a first step. First Nations kids need cultural solutions

The health and mental health care service system in Australia is fundamentally flawed.

Prison health services are funded by state governments without federal funding enjoyed by all other Australians through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

This funding inequity and systemic issues contribute to the overall disadvantage in health care for people in prison.

And in some states, the responsibility for prisoner health care rests with the department of justice rather than the department of health.

This contributes to a breakdown in integrated service planning and delivery, which should include prisoner health care, health care upon release, and continuing care while in the community.

Boosting health literacy among people detained in prisons can help. Health literacy includes health-related critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving.

It means equipping people with the skills they need to actively participate in their own health and wellbeing.

Read more:
‘They weren’t there when I needed them’: we asked former prisoners what happens when support services fail

James Ogloff has received funding from the Australian Research Council and is a Strategic Advisor for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare). Forensicare provides mental health services in prisons in Victoria.

– ref. New report reveals shocking state of prisoner health. Here’s what needs to be done – https://theconversation.com/new-report-reveals-shocking-state-of-prisoner-health-heres-what-needs-to-be-done-217558

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Sacks, Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University

Too many Australian children are eating diets high in added sugars, saturated fats, salt, energy and ultra-processed foods. And often they’re not getting enough fruits, vegetables and wholegrains.

A key driver of unhealthy diets among Australian children is that unhealthy foods and drinks are ever-present and aggressively marketed.

In a new study, we looked at how manufacturers are targeting Australian children with marketing techniques on the packaging of unhealthy foods. We found widespread, unregulated use of promotional techniques, like cartoon characters, that directly appeal to children.

Read more:
Social media platforms need to do more to stop junk food marketers targeting children

Children are vulnerable to food marketing

There’s strong evidence food marketing works. When children are exposed to food marketing, such as in ads on social media or on TV, it increases brand awareness, results in positive brand attitudes, and leads to increased purchase and consumption of marketed products.

Even very young children are affected. For example, there’s evidence kids as young as 18 months can recognise corporate labels, at 20 months can associate items with brand names, at two years old can make consumer choices, and by two to three can draw brand logos.

The way food packaging is designed can also have an important influence on what people buy and consume.

The use of techniques such as cartoon and movie characters, gifts, games and contests on product packs has been shown to encourage children to think of these products as tasty, more fun and more appropriate for them.

Kids’ vulnerability to food marketing leaves parents having to juggle competing desires and demands. The concept of “pester power” recognises the power children have in influencing purchasing decisions.

Our study

We analysed the packages of around 8,000 Australian foods and drinks across a range of categories. These included biscuits, confectionery, breakfast cereals, non-alcoholic drinks, dairy, snack foods, and foods for infants and young children.

We assessed the number of products carrying child-directed promotional techniques on the pack, and grouped the techniques into two major categories:

1. “child-directed characters”, including branded or licensed cartoon characters, children or child-like figures, personified characters (for example, spoons with faces) and celebrities that appeal to children

2. “non-character-based elements”, including gifts, games and contests that appealed to kids, unconventional packaging, or product names that specifically reference children (for example, “kids bar”).

We then assessed the healthiness of products that used child-directed promotional techniques on the pack.

What we found

Some 901 out of 8,006 (11.3%) products had one or more child-directed promotional technique on the pack. Promotions were most common on foods for infants and young children, confectionery, snack foods, and dairy.

Child-directed characters were twice as common as non-character-based elements. Personified characters were the most popular tactic.

We found the vast majority of products using child-directed promotional techniques on their packaging were unhealthy. Some 81% of the child-directed marketing was on ultra-processed products, and the average health star rating of the products with child-directed marketing was 2.34 (out of 5).

How are other countries managing this issue?

To protect children’s health, the World Health Organization recommends governments implement policies to restrict children’s exposure to the marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks across a wide range of media.

In line with those recommendations, several countries have rules in place that ban child-directed promotions on food packaging.

For example, in Chile and Mexico, legislation prohibits the use of child-directed promotions on packaging of products that are high in ingredients such as sugar and salt. These bans are part of broader efforts to address unhealthy diets.

If Australia adopted similar legislation to Mexico, 95.5% of the products in our study with child-directed promotions would have to remove them from the pack.

What regulations does Australia have in place?

In Australia, there are some limited government regulations that restrict some unhealthy food advertising on free-to-air television during dedicated children’s programs.

There are also a range of voluntary guidelines developed by the food and advertising industries that restrict some types of food advertising.

But public health experts have criticised these voluntary codes for being weak and ineffective. They also exclude product packaging.

If Australia is serious about improving children’s health, stronger regulation of child-directed promotional techniques on the packaging of unhealthy foods is warranted.

What changes are needed?

Australia could draw inspiration from Chile and Mexico, which have integrated marketing restrictions with their front-of-pack labelling policies.

In Australia, a similar approach would mean foods that score below a threshold health star rating (say less than 3.5 out of 5) would not be able to use child-directed promotions on the pack. For this to operate effectively, the health star rating system, which is currently voluntary, would need to be made mandatory on all packs.

Read more:
Is it finally time to ban junk food advertising? A new bill could improve kids’ health

In the short term, it’s worth noting nearly two-thirds of products using child-directed promotions in our analysis were made by just 15 manufacturers. This offers some potential for action targeting specific manufacturers to request they voluntarily stop using such tactics on unhealthy foods.

This may be particularly fruitful for Australia’s large supermarket chains, given international examples where this has worked. Lidl in the UK removed cartoon characters from a selection of its own-brand cereals, for instance.

However, given the likely reality that most manufacturers won’t voluntarily abandon the revenue they gain from marketing to children in this way, government regulations are likely to be necessary to drive meaningful and sustained change.

Gary Sacks receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Research Council (ARC), and the National Heart Foundation of Australia.

Alexandra Jones receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She has also received recent funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for work on nutrition labelling.

– ref. Promotional techniques on junk food packaging are a problem for children’s health – Australia could do better – https://theconversation.com/promotional-techniques-on-junk-food-packaging-are-a-problem-for-childrens-health-australia-could-do-better-216538

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danie Nilsson, Behavioural Scientist, CSIRO

Changing habits can be hard. So when a single episode of an Australian television show prompted a national shift in behaviour, as behavioural researchers, we took notice.

The first (2017) and second (2018) seasons of the ABC TV program War on Waste reached audiences of 3.8 million and 3.3 million viewers, respectively. That’s one in seven Australians. It inspired action, slashing the waste footprint of hundreds of Australian organisations. So it remains a valuable example of TV driving social change, and one we can still learn from today.

Through focus groups conducted in 2018, we explored how the first season encouraged Melbourne millennials’ to adopt reusable coffee cups. Then, when the COVID pandemic prompted greater use of disposable consumer products, we revisited the data and delved deeper into behavioural science.

Our analysis revealed people were drawn to the engaging storytelling, confronting visuals and prankster ex-Chaser host Craig Reucassel. He demonstrated, step-by-step, how to minimise waste in a relatable and guilt-free way. Our research, recently published in the journal Communication Research and Practice, can guide others to achieve similar success in behavioural change.

Read more:
What makes people switch to reusable cups? It’s not discounts, it’s what others do

Educational entertainment

In War on Waste, Reucassel confronts Australia’s many waste-management problems and potential solutions.

The series is an example of what behavioural psychologists call “entertainment-education interventions”.

In one episode, Reucassel staged a stunt on a Melbourne tram during peak hour, proclaiming it was filled with 50,000 disposable coffee cups – the amount sent to landfill every 30 minutes in Australia.

Almost overnight, KeepCup sales quadrupled, crashing the company’s website. Membership of a Responsible Cafes initiative promoting reusable coffee cups spiked from 400 cafes to 1,800.

An ABC study found more people of all ages bought coffee in reusable cups after War on Waste aired (up from 37% to 42%).

The survey also revealed millennials (aged 18-34 in 2017) were generally less likely to adopt waste-reduction behaviours compared with other age groups. But they excelled in using reusable coffee cups.

Why was the show so successful in encouraging people, and specifically millennials, to use reusable coffee cups?

If we can explain why this behaviour was so readily adopted, perhaps we can promote other sustainable behaviours at scale, in other entertainment-education interventions.

Our research uncovered five tactics used by the show to get these results.

1. Use a relatable host

Humans relate to people on TV. Research shows celebrities and people we consider engaging and credible are more likely to influence us.

Reucassel is a popular host with celebrity status. One focus group participant said:

A lot of films […] feel very preachy. It’s often either an expert, or just a narrator, who clearly didn’t know anything about the topic beforehand, who has now researched things, who is telling you things. Whereas in the case of the War on Waste, it felt more like he [Reucassel] was learning it with you, at the same time.

In the first season, we watched as Reucassel sorted the contents of a recycling bin, sharing the learning experience with the viewer. Research shows we are more likely to adopt a new behaviour if we’re shown how to do it rather than told what to do.

2. Mix statistics with confronting visuals

High-impact visuals have lasting effect. Reucassel’s many stunts served not only as an engaging way to present statistics, but also a way to connect with viewers by stirring up emotions. This approach builds audience knowledge and willpower, making a change in behaviour more likely.

As one focus group participant put it:

My favourite thing about the show was all the stunts that Craig pulled – it’s classic Chaser stuff. Like the big rolling ball of plastic bags and the tram full of coffee cups. I thought that aspect of it was the most hard-hitting and interesting.

Read more:
We found 3 types of food wasters, which one are you?

3. Promote widespread community action

A common problem with behaviour change initiatives is a person will only change their behaviour if they feel like others are going to change their behaviour too. This often leads to “the tragedy of the commons”, where no one ends up taking action.

The opposite was true for War on Waste. Focus group participants felt the show created a groundswell for environmental change, so they were more inspired to take action because they felt others were taking action too. In the words of one:

I really enjoyed how it was a mix of personal actions [and] more systemic changes […] like getting Coles and Woolworths to change cosmetic standards [for fresh produce] but also the episode with the fast fashion, about getting the teenage girls to consider their own personal choices.

Read more:
Households find low-waste living challenging. Here’s what needs to change

4. Choose behaviours with an easy learning curve

Reducing waste may never be “easy”, but by choosing behaviours perceived to be low-cost with little inconvenience, we have a better chance of success.

Swapping the disposable coffee cup for a reusable cup was considered relatively easy with a “quick learning curve” – compared to composting or having a worm farm – and so became more readily adopted than other behaviours demonstrated in War on Waste.

5. Show how behaviour can reveal social identity

People from all generations prefer to act in accordance with what society deems acceptable. So pro-environmental behaviours are more likely to be adopted when social pressure is placed on them.

War on Waste placed social pressure on us all to reduce our waste. Adopting a reusable coffee cup became a visible symbol for millennials to demonstrate to others that they were doing their bit, while expressing their environmental values.

As one participant said:

I think it’s just a trendy, convenient way to maybe look and feel like you are doing something that’s […] the right step.

What can we learn from this, and what’s next?

Many of the strategies we identified as successful in season one reappeared this year in season three, such as confronting visual stunts, shared learning experiences and targeting easy behaviours.

Based on the findings from our research, we expect to see further positive change generated from this season.

Our research also presents an opportunity to practitioners wanting to create behaviour change at scale by providing them with behavioural science strategies to embed in entertainment-education interventions.

Read more:
What to wear for a climate crisis

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Here’s how a TV series inspired the KeepCup revolution. What’s next in the war on waste? – https://theconversation.com/heres-how-a-tv-series-inspired-the-keepcup-revolution-whats-next-in-the-war-on-waste-210718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin McConkey, Emeritus Professor , UNSW Sydney

Research plays a pivotal role in society. Through research, we gain new understandings, test theories and make discoveries.

It also has a huge economic value. In 2021, the CSIRO found every A$1 of research and development investment in Australia creates an average of $3.50 in economy-wide benefits.

But how do we know if individual research projects being conducted in Australia are good quality? How is research recognised? The key way this happens is through “research assessment”.

Read more:
Tumult and transformation: the story of Australian universities over the past 30 years

What is research assessment?

Research assessment is not a centralised or necessarily formal process. It can involve various processes and measures to evaluate the performance of individual researchers and research institutions. This includes assessing the quality, excellence and impact of various outputs.

Research assessment can be qualitative or quantitative. It can include publications in journals and the number of people who cite the research, gaining grants to do further research, commercialisation, media engagement and impact on decision-making or public policy, prizes and invitations to speak at conferences.

If research assessment is working fairly and effectively, it should achieve several things. This includes: helping to develop researchers’ careers, making sure innovative research does not get avoided in favour of short-term gains and helping funders and the community have confidence research is providing value for money and adding to the public good.

Read more:
We solve problems in 30 days through ‘research sprints’: other academics can do this too

Our project

Our new project aimed to provide a better understanding of how research assessment affects research in Australia.

In a report released today, we surveyed more than 1,000 Australian researchers and more than 50 research organisations.

This included universities, research institutes, industry bodies, government and not-for-profit organisations. The majority of researchers (74%) were in academic roles. Across those research sectors, we also conducted 11 roundtables involving around 120 people and 25 intensive interviews to understand the issues.

This work was commissioned by Chief Scientist Cathy Foley and conducted by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (involving the academies of science, medical science, engineering and technological sciences, social sciences and humanities).

It also comes as the Universities Accord review examines how research is funded and approached within higher education.

What we found

We found some difficulties with the current approach to research assessment.

We heard there is a tendency by some researchers to “play it safe” in terms of doing research they believe will score well. We also heard how the assessment process can unintentionally exclude or devalue particular forms of knowledge, particularly in the humanities and the social sciences, where outputs can be less easily quantified or less immediately seen.

As one interviewee said:

What is assessed and how it is assessed are an indication of what the
organisation values. You only assess what you care about. Values and
culture drive assessment.

Our roundtables told us senior staff and supervisors are often seen to reinforce the culture of “publish or perish”, with the number of articles being valued more highly than the quality.

We heard early and mid-career researchers and people from underrepresented backgrounds can have difficulties trying to “play the game” to advance their careers. For example, early-career researchers are often expected to produce work that benefits their larger team, at a cost to their own capacity for promotion.

As one interviewee noted:

Metrics are essential for defining value and comparative difference, but
Australia requires a modern and fair framework for assessing our current
and next generation of researchers.

Survey results

Our survey found a high level of dissatisfaction with the state of research assessment. This included:

• 73% of respondents agreed assessment processes are not consistently or
  equitably applied across disciplines, in particular between the humanities and the sciences

• 67% said there are not enough opportunities to provide input into research assessment practices

• 70% said assessments took up unreasonable time and effort.

Read more:
Fieldwork can be challenging for female scientists. Here are 5 ways to make it better

The way forward

In our survey, we asked “What is one specific change you would
recommend to improve current research assessment processes?”.

Respondents wanted to see a shift towards quality over quantity. This means not just a focus on publishing as many papers as possible, but supporting research that may take longer for its value and benefits to emerge.

They wanted interdisciplinary research to be promoted and rewarded, because many of the complex problems of our world – from climate change to domestic violence to housing affordability – require multiple disciplines to be involved in finding solutions. In the same vein, they also wanted collaboration and team work to be rewarded more clearly and transparently.

They wanted less bias towards STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) research and more promotion of diversity and of early-career researchers. This included better understanding of their personal and cultural situation, more focused career development and better managed teamwork.

To achieve all of this, and more, we will also need to understand that no single measure can assess all research or researchers. So, several tools will be needed, including quantitative indicators as well as qualitative measures and peer review.

Ana Deletic, Louisa Jorm, Duncan Ivison, Robyn Owens, Jill Blackmore, Adrian Barnett, Kate Thomann, Caroline Hughes, Andrew Peele, Guy Boggs and Raffaella Demichelis were all part of the expert working group supporting this work.

Kevin McConkey has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the current chair of the Policy Committee of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He is the chair of the Expert Working Group of the the Australian Council of Learned Academies, which prepared the report referred to in this article.

– ref. ‘You only assess what you care about’: a new report looks at how we assess research in Australia – https://theconversation.com/you-only-assess-what-you-care-about-a-new-report-looks-at-how-we-assess-research-in-australia-217541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Vasantkumar, Lecturer in Anthropology, Macquarie University

A simple software upgrade went wrong. Across the country economic life ground to a halt. Groceries were abandoned at supermarket checkouts. Commerce was paralysed as the nation waited for its payment system to be brought back on line.

The Optus outage lingers fresh in our minds yet the scene described here is not Melbourne or Sydney in November 2023, but Zimbabwe four years ago when the southern African nation suffered a 72-hour outage of the mobile money service known as Ecocash.

At a time when up to 96% of the country’s transactions were cashless, EcoCash, owned by the privately held telco, EcoNet, boasted more than three times the number of registered users than there are Zimbabweans who hold traditional bank accounts, and a near monopoly on mobile money payments.

Read more:
Optus has revealed the cause of the major outage. Could it happen again?

Occurring soon after a deeply unpopular move towards a cashless economy, this outage, along with a shorter one due to rolling blackouts earlier that same year, exacerbated concerns about the reliability of non-cash payments.

Abandoning the cashless experiment

Four years on, Zimbabwe has retreated from cashlessness, with the pandemic facilitating a return to cash in US dollars as the preferred means of payment. While the 2019 outage was not the only reason Zimbabwe returned to a cash economy, increasing frustration with mobile phone transactions contributed to it.

When I talk informally to Australians about these events and their possible implications for our own economic behaviours, I commonly hear some variant of the reply “but Australia isn’t Zimbabwe!”

But the Zimbabwean case holds some important lessons for us about the undesirability of eliminating cash in the aftermath of the latest Optus outage.

First, these outages highlight a key advantage of physical cash – it never goes down. We can rely on it to be there when we need it in contrast to cashless payment systems such as EFTPOS which suffered disruptions during the 2020 fires in NSW and Victoria.

We’re using less cash but we still won’t let go

Many Australians might argue for the need to keep cash as a fall back in the event of future natural and technical disruptions but the main reason they want to hang onto it has nothing to do with using it to buy and sell.

Read more:
Optus said it didn’t have the ‘soundbite’ to explain the crisis. We should expect better

Indeed its use in buying and selling has been in decline for 20 years and continued to decline during the pandemic. The total percentage of economic transactions cash accounted for dropped from 69% in 2007 to 13% in late 2022 according to the Reserve Bank’s June Bulletin on Consumer Payment Behaviour in Australia.

By contrast, much of the continuing demand for cash can be attributed to its use as a store of value — something you hold onto rather than spend. During the pandemic there was more cash being kept under metaphorical mattresses as a source of security and comfort, than was being spent.

A March 2021 RBA report found from March 2020 to February 2021, the value of banknotes in circulation rose 17.1% to A$97.3 billion because people were holding onto money at home? Moreover, even as its most recent report on cash usage highlights decreased reliance on cash across all demographics, the percentage of respondents stating they would “experience a ‘major inconvenience’ or ‘genuine hardship’ if cash was hard to access or use” has remained unchanged since 2019 at just over a quarter.

Read more:
Going cashless isn’t straightforward. Ask Sweden, or Zimbabwe

This desire to access cash even as its circulation declines highlights the degree to which doing away with it might be ill-advised and potentially destabilising. Indeed, this is exactly what happened in Zimbabwe — the country went cashless very quickly and without buy-in from most people.

Other reasons to keep cash, apart from dodgy technology

Other concerns about going cashless include the lack of privacy in the electronic payment system plus it being more difficult to control spending.

Even as some Australian banks move away from handling cash, other countries, Sweden most famously, have been forced to walk back such measures to respond to the needs of communities left behind by the shift to cashless payments.

These include the elderly, people in regional and remote areas, migrants and people who don’t have a bank account? While these groups are decreasing in size we ignore people who don’t have the knowledge the confidence or reliable access to cashless payment systems at our peril.

The financial transaction process needs to be inclusive. Standard, state-issued currency has historically been a public good that is accessible to all and ideally not a source of profit.

Read more:
Depending on who you are, the benefits of a cashless society are overrated

Going cashless is a form of privatising money. It moves transactions into a world where you must rely on banking institutions to buy and sell things while someone is making money off your financial dealings through fees. We wouldn’t usually think about this as similar to selling off the power grid but in some ways it is.

And as we saw all too vividly with the Optus debacle, a transition to privatised payment infrastructures opens up new kinds of vulnerability to go along with their convenience.

This article draws on research funded in part by a Macquarie University New Staff Grant and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

– ref. Cash may no longer be king, but the Optus debacle shows it is still necessary – https://theconversation.com/cash-may-no-longer-be-king-but-the-optus-debacle-shows-it-is-still-necessary-217520

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tashi Dema, PhD Candidate in Language and Politics, University of New England

Dechen, 40, grew up in Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan. Her native language was Mangdip, also known as Nyenkha, as her parents are originally from central Bhutan. She went to schools in the city, where the curriculum was predominantly taught in Dzongkha, the national language, and English.

In Dechen’s house, everyone spoke Dzongkha. She only spoke her mother tongue when she had guests from her village, who could not understand Dzongkha and during her occasional visits to her village nestled in the mountains. Her mother tongue knowledge was limited.

However, things have now changed.

With 90% of Bhutanese people using social media and social media penetrating all remotes areas in Bhutan, Dechen’s relatives in remote villages are connected on WeChat.

She is in three WeChat groups where people usually communicate through voice messages in their native language. Most WeChat users in rural parts of the country communicate in their oral native language.

“I learn many words. I learnt how to say a lot of things in my own language,” the mother of two now living in Western Australia told me.

Dechen’s story is not isolated. Social media is giving a new lifeline to Bhutan’s native languages, which do not have written script and lack proper documentation. By communicating through voice messages, social media is giving Bhutanese people in both urban and rural areas a new opportunity to use their local language.

Read more:
What can the kingdom of Bhutan teach us about fighting corruption

Losing Bhutan’s languages

Bhutan is a tiny Himalayan nation with a population of under 800,000 people. Internet and television was introduced only in 1999 and mobile phones in 2004.

The country has more than 20 local languages, but only Dzongkha has written text and is promoted as the national language.

The country struggles to promote the national language and its usage against English. Today most urban residents, especially the elites, speak English as their primary language.

Many languages – especially minority languages – are vanishing or becoming endangered as younger generations switch to Dzongkha and English.

The medium of instruction in schools is mostly in English; Dzongkha is taught only as grammar and literature. Students are shamed and often punished for using their local languages.

The preservation and promotion of local languages, therefore, depends on the speakers. A language faces extinction when its speakers die out or switch to another language.

Linguist Pema Wangdi has researched languages in Bhutan, and he told me many people are losing their native language.

“When we lose our language, we lose a piece of our national identity,” he told me.

Wangdi has identified there are no longer any speakers of Olekha, an indigenous dialect of Rukha in Wangdu Phodrang.

“The loss of a single language is a loss of a piece of our national linguistic heritage and identity,” he said. “When a language is lost, cultural traditions which are tied to that language such as songs, myths and poetry will be lost forever.”

Other Bhutanese languages – including Tshophu language of Doyaps in Samtse, Monpa language of central Bhutan, and Gongdukha of Mongar – are endangered and at the brink of extinction.

Preservation of local languages

The future of the minority languages are at threat. The Constitution of Bhutan mandates the preservation and promotion of local languages, but there are no official efforts to preserve native languages.

But encouraging people to speak their native languages can have far reaching benefits in preserving and promoting Bhutan’s rich culture and tradition. Language embodies identity, ethnicity and cultural values: a thriving local language would help transfer this intangible wealth to the younger generation.

Social media could be an invaluable tool in this preservation.

Bhutan could save its languages from becoming extinct with promotion of social media usages and language education could be done on the social media platforms. With both young and old people glued to social media, encouraging more people to use local languages in social media could generate interest among the youth to learn their local languages.

It could also help in documenting the endangered local languages as the older generation can record their voices on WeChat.

Many elder citizens feel strongly about their language and emphasise teaching their mother tongue to the younger generation and their grandchildren. Social media – joining the younger generation on platforms where they feel at home – could be the way forward.

Read more:
Thinking of taking up WeChat? Here’s what you need to know

Tashi Dema does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How social media is breathing new life into Bhutan’s unwritten local languages – https://theconversation.com/how-social-media-is-breathing-new-life-into-bhutans-unwritten-local-languages-210280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The Albanese government is about to have to make a really important decision.

It’s going to have to decide what’s more important: supporting Australians who are financially under water, or keeping an election promise.

And it’ll have to do it soon. It’s already working on its May budget, now just six months away.

That choice will affect almost every Australian, and it could shape whether you’re thousands of dollars a year better off – or not – from July next year.

Household budgets are shrinking

When Labor took office in May 2022, Australians were doing well. Consumer spending and economic growth were on the up and up, and mortgage rates and rents were only starting to climb.

A promise to keep the proposed multi-billion dollar Stage 3 tax cuts – announced but not implemented by the Coalition back in 2018 – seemed worth making to clear away any reasons any voters might have not to vote Labor.

Since May 2022, just about everything has got worse for “ordinary” Australians – those on typical incomes, which are about $85,000 for full-time workers and $43,000 for adult part-time workers.

The best measure of the buying power of after-tax incomes is real household disposable income per capita. During the past year, it shrank 5.3%, which is more than it shrank in either the early 1990s recession or the global financial crisis.

On my calculations, it’s the worst collapse in 40 years.

From those incomes have to be taken rents and mortgage payments.

The Reserve Bank says scheduled mortgage payments are now taking up a larger share of household disposable income than at any time in history – 10% when averaged over all households, including those that don’t have mortgages, and many times that for those that do.

This means when you go to the supermarket and find you can’t afford what you used to, you’re not imagining it. It hasn’t been like this in decades, and it’s about to get worse.

The Christmas bonus is missing

In the lead up to each of the past four Christmases, ordinary earners have received a bonus from the tax office – the so-called low and middle income earner tax offset, initially worth $1,080 and increased to $1,500 in 2022.

This year, it’s gone. It means middle-earners’ pre-Christmas tax refunds will be up to $1,500 smaller or replaced with bills. Taxpayers who normally have a tax bill will get a bill up to $1,500 bigger.

An estimated 10.5 million Australians submitted their tax forms by October 31.

Most of them – most of those earning up to $90,000 and previously eligible for the full $1,500 offset – are about to find themselves a good deal worse off.

Read more:
Why do I suddenly owe tax this year? It could be because the Low and Middle Income Tax offset is gone, forever

Average earners will lose, while the rich get thousands

The very expensive Stage 3 tax cuts (costing $20 billion in their first year, and $313 billion over ten years) were meant to come to the rescue. They begin next July.

Speaking notes prepared for Treasurer Jim Chalmers and released under freedom of information laws say they will provide relief to low and middle earners and kick in at $45,000.

But someone on that income will get no relief. That person will lose an offset of $1,275 in return for a tax cut of zero. Someone on a higher wage of $50,000 will lose $1,500 in order to gain $125, and someone earning the typical full-time wage of $85,000 will have to lose $1,500 to gain just $1,000.

That’s right, a typical full-time worker will get relief of $1,000 from the Stage 3 tax cuts in return for losing the axed tax offset of $1,500.

Much higher earners will do much, much better. An Australian earning twice as much as is typical – $190,000 – will get $7,500. An Australian earning a bit more than that again – $200,000 – will get $9,000.

Labor has been handed an opportunity

Handing $9,000 to a high earner but only $1,000 to an ordinary full-time earner is
an indulgence that might have seemed okay when it looked as if ordinary earners were doing alright, or wouldn’t notice.

But it’s about to happen, and it’s about to cost $20 billion in its first year. That’s as much as the government plans to spend on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme in that year and almost twice what it plans to spend on higher education.

What if it kept the tax cuts, but reoriented them to Australians who actually needed them – to the more than 80% of Australians who earn less than $120,000 a year – while still providing generous cuts to those who earned more than $120,000?

That’s a task Matt Grudnoff and Greg Jericho set themselves at the Australia Institute, coming up with four options. Each of those four would cost less than Stage 3 cuts; deliver more to Australians on less than $120,000 – and even fund a $250 per fortnight increase in the JobSeeker unemployment benefit.

Jericho’s punchline, delivered to the revenue summit at Parliament House last month: “I actually wish it was harder than it was”.

Option 4 costs $70 billion less over ten years but leaves every taxpayer earning up to $132,000 better off.

It doubles the tax cut Stage 3 gives to a typical full-time earner on $85,000, and still gives high earners $2,197 a year each.

Stage 3 vs Australia Institute Option 4, tax cut as percent of taxable income

His point wasn’t that this is the best option. It was that there are options, many of which give the bulk of Australians – the stressed ordinary voters Labor and the Coalition will need in the next election – much more than Stage 3.

What’s wrong with making 80% of the electorate better off at a time when they desperately need it, and cutting future budget deficits by $70 billion?

Only that it would break a promise, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese likes keeping promises.

But when asked in an Australia Institute survey what was more important – keeping a promise or reacting to changing economic circumstances – 61% picked reacting to changing circumstances.

Even among Coalition voters, 56% supported reacting to changing circumstances.

It puts the Stage 3 tax cuts in play. There’s still time, and plenty of electoral and economic reasons to rejig them.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. We could make most Australians richer and still save billions – it’s not too late to fix the Stage 3 tax cuts – https://theconversation.com/we-could-make-most-australians-richer-and-still-save-billions-its-not-too-late-to-fix-the-stage-3-tax-cuts-217560

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

Dual outbreaks of gastro and COVID on the Grand Princess cruise ship that docked in Adelaide on Monday have now been declared over by the doctor on board.

A spokesperson for Princess Cruises, which operates the ship, said a number of passengers had presented with symptoms on a previous voyage. But the ship has since been disinfected and the number of people who were ill when the ship arrived into Adelaide was said to be in single digits.

While this is positive news, reports of infectious outbreaks on cruise ships evoke a sense of deja vu. We probably all remember the high-profile COVID outbreaks that occurred on cruise ships in 2020.

So what is it about cruise ships that can make them such hotspots for infection?

First, what causes these outbreaks?

Respiratory infectious outbreaks on cruise ships may be caused by a range of pathogens including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) and influenza viruses. These can be spread by respiratory droplets and aerosols released when people breathe, talk, laugh, cough and sneeze.

Historically, troop transport ships also helped to spread the lethal 1918 flu virus between continents.

Gastro outbreaks on cruise ships are similarly well documented. More than 90% of cruise ship gastro outbreaks are caused by norovirus, which is spread from person to person, and through contaminated objects or contaminated food or water.

Gastro can also be caused by other pathogens such as bacteria in contaminated food or water.

Read more:
Cruise ships can be floating petri dishes of gastro bugs. 6 ways to stay healthy at sea this summer

What is the risk?

In 2020, around 19% of Diamond Princess passengers and crew docked in Japan tested positive to COVID. Ultimately, nearly one in four Ruby Princess passengers and crew docked in Sydney tested positive.

However, COVID generally presents a lesser risk nowadays, with most people having some level of immunity from vaccination or previous infection. The outbreak on the Grand Princess appears to have been much smaller in scale.

A three-year study before COVID of influenza-like illness (which includes fever), acute respiratory illness (which doesn’t require fever to be present) and gastro on cruise ships found these were diagnosed in 32.7%, 15.9% and 17% of ill passengers, and 10.9%, 80% and 0.2% of ill crew, respectively.

An analysis of data from 252 cruise ships entering American ports showed the overall incidence of acute gastro halved between 2006 and 2019. Passenger cases decreased from 32.5 per 100,000 travel days to 16.9, and crew cases from 13.5 per 100,000 travel days to 5.2. This decline may be due to a combination of improved hygiene and sanitation standards.

The risk of getting sick with gastro was significantly higher on bigger ships and longer voyages. This is because the longer you are in close contact with others, the greater the chance of exposure to an infectious dose of viruses or bacteria.

Why are cruise ships infection hotspots?

On cruise ships, people tend to crowd together in confined spaces for extended periods. These include dining halls, and during social activities in casinos, bars and theatres.

The risk goes up when the environment is noisy, as more droplets and aerosols are shed when people are laughing, shouting or talking loudly.

Passengers may come from multiple countries, potentially bringing variants from different parts of the world. Influenza, which is usually seasonal (late autumn to early spring) onshore, can occur at any time on a cruise ship if it has international passengers or is calling at international ports.

Human behaviour also contributes to the risk. Some passengers surveyed following cruise ship gastro outbreaks indicated they were ill when they boarded the ship, or they became ill but didn’t disclose this because they didn’t want to pay for a doctor or be made to isolate, or they thought it wasn’t serious.

Those who became ill were more likely than those who did not to think that hand hygiene and isolation were not effective in preventing infection transmission, and were less likely to wash their hands after using the toilet. Given faecal contamination is a major source of norovirus transmission, this is concerning.

Read more:
Cruise ships are back and carrying COVID. No, it’s not 2020. But here’s what needs to happen next

While there are usually a la carte dining options on board, many people will choose a buffet option. From personal experience, food tongs are handled by multiple people, some of whom may not have cleaned their hands.

What can help?

The Department of Health and Aged Care recommends cruise companies encourage crew and passengers to be up-to-date with flu and COVID vaccinations, and encourage anyone who becomes ill to stay in their cabin, or at least avoid crowded spaces and wear a mask in public.

They also recommend cruise ships have a plan to identify and contain any outbreaks, including testing and treatment capacity, and communicate to passengers and crew how they can reduce their transmission risk.

All passengers and crew should report any signs of infectious illness, and practice good hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette, such as covering their mouth if coughing or sneezing, disposing of used tissues, and washing or sanitising hands after touching their mouth or nose.

Read more:
Fleas to flu to coronavirus: how ‘death ships’ spread disease through the ages

South Australia’s chief health officer has commended the Grand Princess crew for their infection protection and control practices, and for getting the outbreak under control.

Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Master of Infection Prevention and Control program at Griffith University.

– ref. From COVID to gastro, why are cruise ships such hotbeds of infection? – https://theconversation.com/from-covid-to-gastro-why-are-cruise-ships-such-hotbeds-of-infection-217534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle

The New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes has held its final public sitting in Sydney today.

The special commission investigated unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or people who were presumed to be LGBTIQ) in NSW between 1970 and 2010.

In his closing remarks, Justice John Sackar reiterated that the objective was “to provide some recognition of the truth” for LGBTIQ victims in cases where “the response of the community, of society, [and] of its institutions to these deaths was sadly lacking”.

The inquiry has revealed new leads in decades-old cold cases, and importantly, been dogged in its pursuit of justice for victims and their families.

Read more:
Gender, sexual orientation and ethnic identity: Australians could be asked new questions in the 2026 Census

Months of hearings, piles of evidence

Launched by the NSW government in April 2022, the special commission had extensive powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and to compel the production of more than 150,000 documents.

The deaths of 32 people have been examined in 17 public, and 48 private hearings.

The special commission was driven by a need to clarify aspects of previous investigations by the NSW Police Force, including Strike Forces Parrabell, Macnamir, and Neiwand.

This was recommended by a NSW parliamentary inquiry into gay and transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010.

Research published by ACON, a community health organisation, was integral in the inquiry.

Breakthroughs in decades-old cases

The special commission has uncovered a range of issues with some of the initial investigations. These included lack of investigation, forensic testing issues, and problems with the Strike Force inquiries undertaken by NSW Police Force.

But it has also made several breakthroughs. Justice Sackar noted two of these in his closing remarks.

One is in relation to the death of Crispin Dye, who died on Christmas Day in 1993 after being assaulted two days earlier.

In the 30 years since 1993, almost none of the exhibits collected by the NSW Police Force at that time had been subjected to forensic testing. This included his bloodstained clothing.

The special commission arranged for such testing to occur, and which led to two major developments.

It unearthed a match to a DNA profile taken from a 2002 crime scene. This resulted in the identification of an unknown (but now deceased) man and revealed possible avenues of inquiry into him and his associates.

The second case mentioned was that of Ernest Head, who was murdered in his home in Summer Hill in 1976. His body was found naked, having been stabbed 35 times.

The Special Commission arranged for re-analysis of palmprints and certain other exhibits in relation to Head’s case, which resulted in the identification of a known (but now deceased) man, thought to be involved in Head’s death.

The man in question had never previously been identified as a possible person of interest in relation to this unsolved homicide.

Read more:
The Chinese government claims LGBTQ+ people are protected from discrimination. Our interviews with 26 activists tell another story

Victims front and centre

The special commission received and reviewed information provided by more than 130 members of the public and has clarified ambiguities over unsolved suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people in NSW.

In addition to the cases noted above, it has generated new leads in cold cases that may provide comfort to family and friends who continue to seek answers about what happened to their loved ones.

In shining a light on everything that is known or could be found out about what happened in these cases, Justice Sackar stated in his closing remarks:

Many voiceless people have been given a voice. Recommendations will be made. Improvements in processes and procedures should follow. There is scope for people of goodwill – of whom there are many in this arena – to come together, if they so choose, and work towards a better future.

As such, the special commission has emphasised the importance of the pursuit of justice, even decades after crimes have been committed.

Read more:
‘Don’t say anything about it’: why so many LGBTQIA+ Buddhists feel pressure to hide their identities

State commission, national significance

At a time when LGBTIQ individuals and communities in Australia and globally are experiencing a resurgence of online and in-person hate, the Commission’s findings are likely to have national ramifications.

Given the indifference towards violence and hostility directed at LGBTIQ people in NSW over the 40 year period examined by the special commission, it is timely that other Australian jurisdictions consider whether they also need to address these issues.

The special commission is a timely reminder of the necessity for LGBTIQ individuals and communities to remain vigilant, for police to better respond and listen to victims’ and witnesses’ experiences, and for governments to actively prioritise inclusion.

The final report from the special commission will be handed to the NSW Governor by 15 December 2023.

Nicole L. Asquith was contracted by and received funding from the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes to provide expert testimony. Nicole is the Convenor of the Australian Hate Crime Network.

Justin Ellis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Shining a light on injustice: how an inquiry fought for LGBTIQ recognition – https://theconversation.com/shining-a-light-on-injustice-how-an-inquiry-fought-for-lgbtiq-recognition-217537

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anya Schiffrin, Senior Lecturer in Discipline of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

In a time of war and populism, the world needs quality information and credible news outlets. Local news is a part of this healthy ecology.

But news publishers have struggled to find ways to make money in recent years – especially as referral traffic and ad revenue from social media sites continue to fall.

The monopoly power of large platforms, and the control they exert over news distribution, was one reason Australia’s competition authorities introduced the News Media Bargaining Code in 2021.

This code has prompted Google and Meta to strike deals with a number of Australian media organisations, addressing the longstanding conundrum of how to get platforms to pay for news. It has even become a template for other countries looking to compensate their own media businesses.

But what exactly is fair compensation in this case? Our new report suggests the amounts of money Google and Meta should be paying news publishers are far greater than anyone imagined, and far more than the tech companies themselves claim.

When Australia’s bargaining code went global

Australia broke new ground when it passed the News Media Bargaining Code, successfully pushing Google and Meta to reach voluntary commercial agreements with a number of media organisations.

It was a world-first piece of legislation, as La Trobe University Professor Andrea Carson put it.

Read more:
Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code led the world. It’s time to finish what we started

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, payments made under the code total about A$200 million each year. It’s no surprise other governments are looking at Australia’s law to find ways to get payments for their news too.

Indonesia, New Zealand, South Africa and Switzerland have all considered similar laws. Japan conducted a study on the online distribution of news content, and in September warned tech platforms low payments to publishers could violate antimonopoly laws.

In Brazil, attempts to introduce platform remuneration legislation were scuppered in May after significant pressure from Google, but are currently being revived.

In the United States, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would allow collective bargaining by news publishers, was introduced by Democratic Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar in March.

Then, in June, the California State Assembly passed the California Journalism Preservation Act, which would require large tech companies to share their advertising revenue with news outlets. However, the bill has been put on hold until 2024.

Whether or not the laws pass, Google and Facebook are coming out against them, threatening to drop news from their platforms in several countries. Facebook dropped news in Canada in August, and in Australia in February 2021 (before bringing it back a short while later).

Read more:
Stuff-up or conspiracy? Whistleblowers claim Facebook deliberately let important non-news pages go down in news blackout

Google and Meta suggest news isn’t core to their business and can be dropped or de-emphasised. At the same time, reports say they’re continuing to give small amounts of money to publishers.

In fact, interviews we conducted over the past couple of months with people working for different outlets suggest Google has recently been raising payments made to publishers worldwide, in what we think is an attempt to forestall legislation.

Globally, publishers have estimated what they believe they’re owed under platform remuneration acts similar to Australia’s. But these amounts are covered under non-disclosure agreements when publishers make direct deals with Google and Meta.

Our working paper is the first to estimate what Google and Meta owe US publishers. We have made our methodology public so it can be checked and replicated.

We found that in the US, Google and Meta owe news publishers between US$11 billion and US$14 billion per year. This is much more than the sums being paid out, which we know about through interviews and specific cases in which amounts have been made public.

Sharing surplus value fairly

At the core of our study and its conclusions is what economists call “surplus” – the additional value created when two sides enter into a mutually beneficial interaction. Importantly, the value generated from the interaction is larger than if the two sides were to operate in isolation.

Digital platforms benefit from having varied, credible and timely news content provided by publishers. This enhances user engagement and makes their platform more attractive to advertisers. News publishers benefit by finding an avenue through which they can distribute their content, thereby reaching more readers.

Our methodology found this additional surplus value generated from the platform-publisher interaction, and then used insights from the economics of bargaining, and from historical benchmarks, to calculate a “fair” payment owed to news publishers.

Our methodology is transparent and replicable, and offers the flexibility to change underlying assumptions based on the market and geography being analysed. With this report, we hope to broaden the discussion over the payments that large digital platforms such as Google and Facebook owe news publishers.

It’s more important than ever that deals between platforms and media businesses are fair and transparent, and that publishers stick together as they negotiate. More value is created when bargaining is collective.

The Conversation reached out to Google for comment but did not receive a response before the deadline.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why Google and Meta owe news publishers much more than you think – and billions more than they’d like to admit – https://theconversation.com/why-google-and-meta-owe-news-publishers-much-more-than-you-think-and-billions-more-than-theyd-like-to-admit-216818

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

More than five weeks into Israel’s war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not outlined his future vision for Gaza.

He has said many times the war will continue until Hamas is eradicated. But his battle plan for achieving that objective is far from clear.

As calls grow louder around the world for a ceasefire, Israel is finding itself under increasing pressure to respond. This is placing more scrutiny on Netanyahu’s overall strategy for prosecuting the war – and what could happen after it’s over.

Constantly in the background of Israel’s military campaign is the fate of more than 200 hostages – Israelis and other nationals – held by Hamas. Netanyahu has said there will be no ceasefire until all the hostages are released. Hamas has responded that no hostages will be released in advance of a ceasefire.

Neither side shows signs of budging and Hamas has now suspended negotiations over hostage releases because of Israel’s siege of Al Shifa hospital, Gaza City’s main medical centre. Israel says a Hamas complex is hidden in tunnels underneath the hospital – a claim Hamas denies.

Most of Gaza’s population is now crowded into the southern part of the strip. Some of Hamas’ key leaders are likely hiding there, raising another pertinent question as the war drags on. How will the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) succeed in their mission of eradicating Hamas if its operatives are hiding among civilians in such a crowded area? Netanyahu has given no public indication.

Read more:
Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership is questioned even as Israelis rally round the flag

Growing US-Israeli frictions

With so many key questions left unanswered, there is a growing disconnect between Netanyahu and the Biden administration in the United States.

President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both said Israel should not reoccupy Gaza after the war. They have also indicated a preference for the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, to extend its authority to Gaza after Hamas’ removal.

By contrast, Netanyahu has said Israel will need to retain control over security in Gaza after the war.

Moreover, he has rejected the Palestinian Authority as a successor administration to Hamas for various reasons, including the fact it has not issued an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Netanyahu’s balancing act

Netanyahu’s planning seems to be edging towards a demilitarised Gaza with IDF forces based outside the strip, ready to re-enter the enclave when any security threat to Israel is detected.

But he does not seem to be addressing the risk that a power vacuum following Hamas’ removal might be filled by another militant group, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which would certainly not be to Israel’s liking.

Nor has he addressed the probability that disarming those Palestinians who are already radicalised will only be a partially effective exercise.

The problem with understanding Netanyahu’s thought process is that he is dealing with several imperatives simultaneously:

1) Appeasing hard-line members of his government

The coalition government he leads is the most right-wing in Israel’s history. Though the influence of extremists has been diluted by the addition of the centrist Benny Gantz to the war cabinet, Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu still suggested Israel might use a nuclear weapon against Gaza. He was repudiated by Netanyahu, but the comment was indicative of hardline sentiment that remains in the government.

After the war, Netanyahu doubtless hopes to resume governing with this coalition, so he must take their interests into account when it comes to formulating a post-war plan for Gaza.

2) Assuaging the anger of hostages’ families

The families are demanding Netanyahu prioritise negotiations to free their loved ones over the military campaign. Netanyahu claims he is prioritising both. But that claim has lost some cogency since reports emerged that Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire early in the war in return for release of some of the hostages.

3) Securing his own political future

Netanyahu will be acutely aware that the only other Israeli political leader to have presided over a security and intelligence failure of the magnitude of Hamas’ October 7 attack was Golda Meir at the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. And she resigned soon after the Egyptian and Syrian forces were defeated.

The longer the current war continues, the greater the chance Netanyahu can severely diminish Hamas’ leadership structure. And this would allow him to burnish his tarnished credentials as Israel’s security guarantor.

He will also have noted former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s comment that Israel probably has only weeks left to eliminate Hamas before international public opinion completely turns against Israel. This adds urgency to Netanyahu’s need for an outcome he can describe as a victory.

4) Dealing with pressures from the White House

The Biden administration is also letting it be known through media leaks that it has concerns over Israel’s conduct of the war, particularly the high number of civilian casualties and apparent lack of an exit strategy. The US is also warning Israel more explicitly that international support for its military operation is waning.

This is of growing concern to the Biden administration because its strong support for Israel comes with increasing risks. First, American diplomats have said anger in the Arab world is so intense over continued US support for Israel, it is “losing us Arab publics for a generation”.

And there is also the risk Biden’s embrace of Israel could hurt him during next year’s presidential election. Many of the anti-war demonstrators in the US are young, college-educated progressives who helped elect Biden in 2020. If these voters fail to turn out for him next year, the likely Republican candidate, Donald Trump, could prevail.

Reaching an acceptable – and achievable – endgame

Biden and Netanyahu are thus on a collision course. Netanyahu wants a long war in order to maximise his chances of eliminating Hamas – and to delay the inevitable post-war reckoning over the Israeli security failure that led to so much carnage on October 7.

Biden agrees Hamas has to be destroyed, but he needs the war to be as short as possible in order to limit the blow-back against US interests internationally, as well as against him domestically.

There is also uncertainty about the amount of purchase Biden might have if he attempts to rein in Netanyahu. That uncertainty is compounded by the question of what might be an acceptable – and achievable – endgame in Gaza for both.

Read more:
‘We remain afraid of the future’ – how Palestinian children’s optimism was fading even before this crisis

Ian Parmeter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. As calls grow louder for a Gaza ceasefire, Netanyahu is providing few clues about his strategy or post-war plans – https://theconversation.com/as-calls-grow-louder-for-a-gaza-ceasefire-netanyahu-is-providing-few-clues-about-his-strategy-or-post-war-plans-217653

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

Around 4.05am on Wednesday November 8 2023, Optus suffered a nationwide network outage lasting well into the evening, more than 12 hours later.

Now, Optus has released some information on what happened, stating “we now know what the cause was and have taken steps to ensure it will not happen again”.

As a telecommunications expert, I believe we should have no confidence in this statement, because the poorly worded explanation leaves many questions unanswered.

Could a similar outage happen again? We don’t know – but there are ways to make it less likely.

Read more:
Optus blackout explained: what is a ‘deep network’ outage and what may have caused it?

How did the outage unfold?

The Optus outage caused all services to go offline. Landlines, mobile phones, home internet, small business and enterprise, and cloud connections all dropped out.

The most serious impact of the outage was that Optus landlines couldn’t dial 000 and Optus mobile phones were unable to connect to the 000 emergency call service unless the connection occurred through Telstra or Vodafone infrastructure.

More than 10 million Optus customers were affected by the outage that brought Melbourne’s trains to a halt and left Optus’s small business customers unable to carry out EFTPOS transactions.

So, what went wrong with Optus?

Optus has revealed that a “routine software upgrade” triggered a cascading failure in the Optus internet protocol (IP) core network – the central backbone of their network that authorises device access and provides customer management.

Optus has provided a brief answer on why the entire network went offline:

“These routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset safety levels on key routers which could not handle these. This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves.”

Routing information is used to find a path from one location on the internet to another – a router is a device that manages the traffic flows.

The explanation provided by Optus points to human error. This confirms what industry experts suspected had happened. The resulting flood of “routing information changes” overwhelmed key routers in the core network causing them to disconnect, thereby bringing the entire network to a halt.

Read more:
Explainer: what is the ‘core network’ that was crucial to the Optus outage?

Should the outage have been preventable?

Outages of this kind are not uncommon – human error has led to major companies going offline in the past.

But an entire telecommunications network going offline is unusual. The network should be designed in such a way that redundancy (backups) and resiliency are built in from the outset.

Before a software upgrade occurs, there should be modelling, testing and several layers of sign-off.

In case something goes wrong, there should be infrastructure and system redundancy. An automated or manual procedure should exist to ensure the redundant systems become operational within a few minutes.

In 2021, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram disappeared from the internet for roughly six hours due to an incorrect routing configuration.

Meta’s lengthy and informative statement at the time provides an example of the level of detail that we should expect Optus to provide.

With the Optus outage and similar incidents at other companies that have led to major outages, in nearly every case the outage was preventable and highlighted deficiencies in the organisation.

Read more:
In a crisis, Optus appears to be ignoring Communications 101

What should Optus do now?

The national outage means the Optus network is not fit for purpose.

It can be assumed Optus has a number of deficiencies, such as problems with engineering capability, testing, procedures, network redundancy and resilience.

Optus states they are “committed to learning from what has occurred” and will continue to work to “increase the resilience” of their network.

For this to lead to an effective outcome, Optus will need to carry out a review and put in place new processes, infrastructure and systems to prevent a similar outage in the future.

How do we know a similar outage won’t happen again?

We don’t.

We need enhanced government regulation of the Australian telecommunications network operators to provide improved visibility of the redundancy and resilience of their networks. The Senate has commenced an inquiry into the Optus outage.

Telecommunications is an essential service. Australians should be able to connect to the 000 emergency call service at all times. Reliable access to medical services, EFTPOS and the internet are vital.

If necessary, penalties should be introduced into the Telecommunications Act 1997 to ensure telecommunications network operators implement and maintain “best practice” related to network operation, redundancy and resilience.

Mark A Gregory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Optus has revealed the cause of the major outage. Could it happen again? – https://theconversation.com/optus-has-revealed-the-cause-of-the-major-outage-could-it-happen-again-217564

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, Australian National University

On November 1, Pakistan began a nationwide operation to deport over 1.7 million Afghans it says are living in the country illegally. There are now an estimated 10,000 people returning to Afghanistan each day.

Pakistan has indicated the deportations are designed to reduce cross-border incursions from Taliban fighters based in Afghanistan. But it is more likely the interim military government is succumbing to populist politics around inflation, housing shortages and cost of living pressures in the country.

There were already over a million Afghans living in Pakistan before the Taliban came back into power in Afghanistan in August 2021. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been unable to process all of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans who have fled to Pakistan since then. It is estimated only about a third of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are registered with the refugee agency.

The level of documentation that Afghans in Pakistan have varies extensively. Some entered the country without visas and passports. Some entered on visas and have been waiting indefinitely for renewal, others are on expired visas.

The UNHCR has subcontracted much of the registration of refugees to other organisations in Pakistan. Often, payment to a local broker is the only way refugees are able to get an appointment. This is entirely unreasonable when countries like Australia require UNHCR registration of refugees to facilitate priority processing.

Many refugees experience lengthy waiting periods to be registered, formally recognised as refugees and then issued an ID card, let alone referred for onward resettlement. Shelter, food and medical assistance are not even considered.

Refugee identity documents are not even enough to protect people from deportation. There have been reports of police detaining and threatening people with valid Pakistani visas. Activists told me of incidents in which police have torn up valid visas and Afghan passports.

Many Afghans have applied for resettlement in countries that were members of the NATO-led force that maintained security in Afghanistan, such as the US, Canada, Australia and countries in the European Union. But as the world has turned its eye to other conflicts, those countries have fallen drastically short of their promises to Afghan refugees. It is estimated only 200,000 Afghans have been resettled globally since August 2021.

Read more:
‘I feel suffocated’: Afghans are increasingly hopeless, but there’s still a chance to preserve some rights

A trickle of visas approved for Afghans

Human Rights Watch has also highlighted the unreasonably slow processing times for Afghan refugees in resettlement countries, such as the US, UK, Germany, Australia and other EU countries. This is particularly true for women and girls, the organisation says:

Afghan women and girls have often faced greater barriers to obtaining asylum, as destination countries have often prioritised assisting Afghans – overwhelmingly men – who contributed to their military efforts.

Since the Taliban returned to power, only 12,200 Afghan applicants have received a humanitarian visa to enter Australia. During the 2022 federal election campaign, Labor promised to increase the total refugee and humanitarian intake to 27,000 people annually. But this hasn’t happened.

Australia has promised just 26,500 humanitarian and 5,000 family places for Afghans from 2021-26.

Yet, there are more than 147,000 Afghan applicants still in the queue waiting to be processed from the 189,000 applications received since August 2021. And earlier this year, the Department of Home Affairs quietly removed human rights defenders from its list of groups to receive priority visa processing from Afghanistan.

A dire situation for women and girls

Former US President George W. Bush said in the early 2000s that the US went to Afghanistan to liberate the country’s women, but those women have been forgotten now.

Today, Afghanistan remains in one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises.

The United Nations has described a system of gender apartheid under Taliban rule, in which women are prevented from participating in any public life, education or economic activity outside the home.

Infant and maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed because women are not allowed to travel to seek medical attention, female doctors are not allowed to work and male doctors are not allowed to treat female patients.

Leaders of NGOs that work on women’s education and other women’s rights continue to be disappeared. Women who are brave enough to protest on the street are beaten. Journalists are routinely detained for covering such issues.

Last year, the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund launched a new program dedicated to supporting women’s human rights defenders around the world. However, I’ve been told this program is now facing a US$14 million (A$22 million) funding shortfall.

This fund provides small grants to a number of Afghan women’s human rights defenders to fund their ongoing advocacy work and relocate them or help them flee when their lives are in danger. Often, these women need this money to pay exorbitant prices for visa extensions to stay in Pakistan, or for exit permits to leave the country if they are given a resettlement place elsewhere.

If countries like Australia and the US help make up this shortfall, more women will have access to these grants and be able to escape extreme security risks.

What now for Afghans living in limbo?

Western countries must keep their promises to process refugee visa applications for Afghans in a timely fashion.

Australia refuses to grant refugee visas to people currently in Afghanistan. Yet, the government is still taking years to process the claims of incredibly high risk individuals outside the country who meet several priority processing criteria. Those people fled to countries like Pakistan and Iran and are now being deported because the process has taken so long.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

Similarly, Afghans who are eligible for special immigrant visas to the US can also wait for years. Even if they get an appointment with the US embassy in Islamabad, there is no guarantee of a timeline when they will be sent to the US.

These timelines have to change. Globally, poorer countries shoulder the burden as the hosts of the overwhelming majority of refugees. Pakistan is now deporting Afghans. Iran, host to more than three million Afghan refugees, will likely follow soon.

Susan Hutchinson is executive director of Azadi-e Zan, an NGO dedicated to helping Afghan women’s human rights defenders. This is an unpaid role. She is also a member of the Australian Civil Society Coalition for Women, Peace and Security.

– ref. Why Western countries share the blame for the plight of 1.7 million Afghans being deported from Pakistan – https://theconversation.com/why-western-countries-share-the-blame-for-the-plight-of-1-7-million-afghans-being-deported-from-pakistan-217532

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stacey Pizzino, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

When armed conflict breaks out, we first focus on the people affected. But the suffering from war doesn’t stop when the fighting does. War trashes the environment. Artillery strikes, rockets and landmines release pollutants, wipe out forests and can make farmland unusable.

One in six people around the world have been exposed to conflict this year, from civil war in Sudan to Russia’s war in Ukraine to the Israel-Hamas war.

War has returned. Conflicts are at their highest point since the second world war. Deaths are at a 28-year high. As we grapple with the immediate plight of people, we must not lose sight of what war leaves behind – the silent casualty of the environment.

À lire aussi :
The environmental impact of Russia’s invasion goes beyond Ukraine – how do we deal with ‘problems without passports’?

What damage does war do?

Armed conflict leaves a long trail of environmental damage, which in turn can worsen our health and that of other species.

Chemical weapons and pollution from weapons stay in the environment as a toxic legacy. Explosives release pollutants such as depleted uranium into soil, while landscapes can be destroyed by troop movement and the breakdown of infrastructure.

The damage can last far longer than you’d think. The bloody second world war Battle of Verdun in France left the once-fertile farmland contaminated. Over a century later, no one can live in the Red Zone due to the threat from unexploded bombs.

As the Russia-Ukraine war wears on, severe air pollution, deforestation and soil degradation have mounted.

Conflict also causes habitat loss and decreased biodiversity. Between 1946 and 2010, wildlife noticeably declined in African nations affected by armed conflict.

Landmines are particularly bad, as they are designed to remain in place until stepped on. Long after a war ends, they can still kill people or animals. Landmines also cause degradation and limit access to safe land, which can then become over-exploited. Landmines have been unearthed by flood waters in Libya, Ukraine, Lebanon and Bosnia Herzegovina.

Many explosive weapons are designed to withstand short periods of intense heat. But when high temperatures linger, unexploded bombs can detonate. As the world heats up, we may see more explosions – not just from remnant bombs, but from munitions dumps.

À lire aussi :
The war on Tigray wiped out decades of environmental progress: how to start again

In the fast-heating Middle East, this is already happening. In Iraq, six arms depots exploded during intense heatwaves between 2018 and 2019. In Jordan, heatwaves have been blamed for a similar arms dump explosion in 2020.

At war’s end, weapons are often dumped in the ocean. From the first world war until the 1970s, out of date munitions and chemical weapons in the United Kingdom were dumped into the sea. It may have seemed like an easy solution, but the bombs haven’t gone away. Over 1 million tonnes of munitions litter the floor of a natural ocean trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland. These sometimes detonate underwater, while chemical weapons have washed up on beaches.

During the second world war, intense fighting took place on the Solomon Islands. Even today, people die or are wounded every year when uncovered bombs go off. Fishers have to be wary of underwater bombs.

Environmental exploitation such as illegal logging or diamond mining can accelerate during wartime, with profits used to buy weapons to fuel more fighting. At least 40% of civil war and internal conflicts between 1946–2006 were tied to natural resources such as teak and gold, according to the United Nations.

Sometimes, natural resources can become targets, as in the deliberate firing of oil wells in Kuwait or destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam. These scorched-earth tactics do untold damage to the environment.

How do war and climate change interact?

The long-running war in Sudan’s Darfur region has been dubbed the world’s first climate change war due to its origins in drought and ecological crisis. While it’s difficult to clearly draw a link between the changing climate and an armed conflict, climate change is at minimum an indirect driver of armed conflict and can exacerbate existing social, economical and environmental factors. In turn, conflict worsens the damage done by climate change as it limits people’s ability to respond or cope with climate shocks.

Wars and extreme weather can both force people from their homes. At the end of last year, the number of people forced to seek refuge elsewhere in their own country was at an all time high. When people are forced to move, the disruption can add extra environmental damage through plastic and other types of waste.

When wars are raging, they take priority for governments. That, in turn, can limit efforts to reduce emissions or adapt to climate change.

That can make disasters worse. Colombia’s deadly 2017 landslide killed over 300 people. Why was it so deadly? In part, because many people had fled to the affected town, Mocoa, to avoid war and had built makeshift houses with no protection against disasters. We also know deaths from disasters increase in nations riven by armed conflict.

The world’s military forces are intense users of fossil fuels, accounting for 5.5% of global emissions. If we took the world’s military forces as one country, they would be the fourth highest emitter, after China, America and India.

We can no longer ignore the devastating coupling between war and environmental damage, including climate change. Wars make our ability to adapt to climate change worse, and environmental damage from conflict will exacerbate climate change.

À lire aussi :
War leaves a toxic legacy that lasts long after the guns go quiet. Can we stop it?

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

– ref. Conflict pollution, washed-up landmines and military emissions – here’s how war trashes the environment – https://theconversation.com/conflict-pollution-washed-up-landmines-and-military-emissions-heres-how-war-trashes-the-environment-216987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Shah, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Auckland

In October alone, more children were reported to have died in Gaza than the total number of children killed annually in all other conflicts since 2019. The awful statistic led to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres calling Gaza a “graveyard for children”.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, the humanitarian catastrophe has been unprecedented in scale and scope. While not as acute in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the impact on young people in those territories has also been severe.

Scores of schools have been shut due to security concerns, and movement between towns is significantly limited. Violence between Israeli settlers and the Palestinian population has increased, with little apparent intervention by the Israeli military or government.

According to a UNICEF briefing to the UN Security Council, the recent escalation could lead to “trauma which could last a lifetime” for children in both Palestine and Israel. Even before this crisis, however, the toll of the protracted conflict on Palestinian children has been clear.

Over the four years between 2019 and 2022, I led a study exploring children’s wellbeing in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Conducted in partnership with the Norwegian Refugee Council, we surveyed approximately 800 children and their teachers. The trends we observed were cause for grave concern – even before events of the past month.

‘Insecure all the time’

The children we surveyed in Gaza had lived through at least three large-scale Israeli military operations in their lifetimes. Due to Israel’s longstanding blockade of the territory, they have grown up with food insecurity and unreliable supplies of electricity and drinking water.

With most of their caregivers unemployed, many children are vulnerable to poor living conditions, as well as violence within the home.

Read more:
What is the rule of proportionality, and is it being observed in the Israeli siege of Gaza?

Despite this, the children of Gaza we surveyed in 2019 showed tremendous resilience: 80% felt things would be better in the future. For many, attending and succeeding in school offered the hope of finding a way out of their circumstances.

By 2022, however, the situation had changed markedly. COVID-19 lockdowns, followed by a major escalation in violence in the spring of 2021 just as students returned to school full time, saw only 20% positive about their future.

Such circumstances had deflated their capacity to aspire, hope and dream of a better tomorrow. As one group of boys described in a story they wrote together:

We remain afraid of the future, and not trusting it will bring us any more hope. We can’t forget the events we have been through and feel insecure all the time.

Pandemic respite

Our research suggests the same is true for children in parts of the West Bank which face the ongoing presence of Israeli settlers and military in their communities.

Children surveyed in the part of Hebron under Israeli military control (Hebron H2), and in East Jerusalem, face daily restrictions as they travel to and from school. Many need to pass through military checkpoints where they face delays and harassment.

For these children, the pandemic offered a kind of respite from having to make these daily journeys. One group of girls living in Hebron H2 wrote:

The streets were calm and quiet, and there was not the usual conflict between us and the soldiers.

Read more:
Israel-Hamas conflict: what Gaza might look like ‘the day after’ the war

Schools reopened after the pandemic at the same time as tension and violence mounted across the West Bank over the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements on seized Palestinian land. Attacks in and around schools increased, as did Palestinian casualties.

For the most acutely affected areas, our survey recorded significant declines in children’s wellbeing, particularly in their ability to calm themselves when scared, and to think of solutions to daily challenges they faced. One group of girls at a school outside Jerusalem wrote:

Whenever there are incidences, we have strikes which close our school again and return us to learning from home which we don’t like. We are frustrated, depressed, and [made] angry by the situation.

Read more:
International reaction to Gaza siege has exposed the growing rift between the West and the Global South

Frustration and escalation

Pressure is now mounting for a ceasefire to end this latest cycle of violence. If and when this happens, humanitarian organisations and donors will flood back in to restore, repair and attempt to remediate the physical and psychological damage.

But if the root causes and drivers of the Israel-Palestine conflict remain unaddressed, and if there is no greater international resolve to change the status quo once and for all, it seems inevitable we will witness more bloodshed and suffering.

Children on both sides of the conflict deserve a durable and lasting solution. Our survey suggests their resilience was already seriously declining before the current emergency. Without hope, this will deteriorate even further. As one school principal told me:

We feel trapped by the situation we are in, and the violence just escalates out of frustration.

Ritesh Shah received funding from the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations for this research.

– ref. ‘We remain afraid of the future’ – how Palestinian children’s optimism was fading even before this crisis – https://theconversation.com/we-remain-afraid-of-the-future-how-palestinian-childrens-optimism-was-fading-even-before-this-crisis-217535

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiri Joy Wallace, Research Fellow in Restoration Ecology, University of Waikato

Biodiversity continues to decline globally, but nowhere is the loss more pronounced than in Aotearoa New Zealand, which has the highest proportion of threatened indigenous species in the world.

We hope our Eco-index initiative, which today launches an online ecosystem restoration map for New Zealand, will help change the story for nature.

Planning large-scale biodiversity restoration projects – whether they’re run by NGOs, governments or Indigenous groups – requires high-quality data.

Despite the rising demand, however, accessible biodiversity data have not been collected regularly or consistently. There are also challenges around the standardisation, storage and sharing of such data.

This means it has been difficult to quantify native ecosystems and biodiversity at scale. Cost-benefit analyses often have information gaps, meaning prioritising the various options for restoration projects can become guesswork.

Read more:
Despite its green image, NZ has world’s highest proportion of species at risk

Better data with help from new technologies

Without accurate information, improving biodiversity becomes harder. But emerging technologies – such as remote sensing and artificial intelligence – are making it easier to gather better data.

The Eco-index Ecosystem Restoration Map provides New Zealand’s first public, open-access digital tool in this area. It aims to address information gaps in biodiversity restoration, and to show users which native ecosystems are appropriate to reconstruct in any given catchment area.

It also shows where the highest restoration priorities are – such as in areas with very low native ecosystem cover. And it allows anyone to view the restoration targets for each native ecosystem in any catchment.

The map was developed with input from Indigenous leaders, rural professionals, community group leaders, government and industry bodies. Our goal is to share science-based information to support national discussion, policy and planning for ecosystem restoration.

It will be most useful when used alongside local information based on regional council guidance and local restoration expertise.

Ecological, economic, social and data science underpin the map’s development, as well as mātauranga Māori (Indigenous knowledge). The map will continue to be refined with data from new technologies and user feedback.

Read more:
Growing NZ cities eat up fertile land – but housing and food production can co-exist

Biodiversity in policy and business

Internationally, there is growing interest in more strategic biodiversity support, including improved policy frameworks and sustainable finance.

New Zealand is addressing some national biodiversity issues through policy, such as the release of a national biodiversity strategy. The strategy encompasses three pillars, with objectives to improve systems that influence biodiversity, empower residents to take action, and protect or restore native biodiversity.

New Zealand’s National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity requires regional councils to safeguard native biodiversity and to “set a target of at least 10% Indigenous vegetation cover”.

The Eco-index has a minimum goal of 15% native ecosystem cover. It recommends land managers tackle ecosystem restoration from wherever they are now. This may mean aiming for 10% cover in the next ten years, followed by 15% in 15 years, and 30% in two decades.

The rationale behind the 15% goal is that large tracts of native ecosystems support more native species than small, fragmented patches. Once an area drops below 10-20% of its original land cover, the number of species it can support declines suddenly.

Read more:
Without a better plan, New Zealand risks sleepwalking into a biodiversity extinction crisis

Aotearoa New Zealand is also a signatory to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework against which biodiversity strategy outcomes will be assessed and reported internationally.

Beyond this, global discussions focus on the development of biodiversity credit frameworks and include considerations such as the United Nations-supported Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures. The potential of these separate but aligned initiatives to create cumulative, positive impacts for nature is substantial.

Read more:
Slow solutions to fast-moving ecological crises won’t work – changing basic human behaviours must come first

Creating change

The success of these policies and frameworks hinges on the availability of high-quality data to understand the current state and trends in biodiversity, and to monitor outcomes.

Initiated in 2020, the Eco-index group focuses on biodiversity in Aotearoa New Zealand being protected, restored and connected by 2121. This long term vision aligns with inter-generational land-management thinking. It acknowledges that it takes time to fully realise these native biodiversity ambitions.

Eco-index also claims the status of being the first digital public good in New Zealand. The interactive public map is the first publicly available tool, with other digital tools in development for release next year.

The wider toolkit aims to empower large-scale restoration planning with a range of customised spatial and economic tools. These can help identify the best locations for planting, inform costings, and provide valuations of ecosystem services.

They can also detect native ecosystems remotely, using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence.

If successful, the toolkit can be expanded for global use. It could also include specialised tools for natural hazard mitigation, such as the restoration of urban wetlands for flood control.

These tools are developed from the best information available, including Planet satellite imagery and data from Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and Rongowai Science Payloads Operations Centre in partnership with the Geospatial Research Institute.

Kiri Wallace receives funding from the New Zealand Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. Fonterra and Environment Canterbury have also provided funding for some aspects of Eco-index work.

John Reid receives funding from the New Zealand Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. Fonterra and Environment Canterbury have also provided funding for some aspects of Eco-index work.

Penny Payne receives funding from the New Zealand Biological Heritage National Science Challenge. Fonterra and Environment Canterbury have also provided funding for some aspects of Eco-index work.

– ref. Restoring ecosystems to boost biodiversity is an urgent priority – our ‘Eco-index’ can guide the way – https://theconversation.com/restoring-ecosystems-to-boost-biodiversity-is-an-urgent-priority-our-eco-index-can-guide-the-way-217092

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Dawel, Clinical psychologist and Lecturer, Research School of Psychology, Australian National University

Does ChatGPT ever give you the eerie sense you’re interacting with another human being?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached an astounding level of realism, to the point that some tools can even fool people into thinking they are interacting with another human.

The eeriness doesn’t stop there. In a study published today in Psychological Science, we’ve discovered images of white faces generated by the popular StyleGAN2 algorithm look more “human” than actual people’s faces.

AI creates hyperrealistic faces

For our research, we showed 124 participants pictures of many different white faces and asked them to decide whether each face was real or generated by AI.

Half the pictures were of real faces, while half were AI-generated. If the participants had guessed randomly, we would expect them to be correct about half the time – akin to flipping a coin and getting tails half the time.

Instead, participants were systematically wrong, and were more likely to say AI-generated faces were real. On average, people labelled about 2 out of 3 of the AI-generated faces as human.

These results suggest AI-generated faces look more real than actual faces; we call this effect “hyperrealism”. They also suggest people, on average, aren’t very good at detecting AI-generated faces. You can compare for yourself the portraits of real people at the top of the page with the ones embedded below.

But perhaps people are aware of their own limitations, and therefore aren’t likely to fall prey to AI-generated faces online?

To find out, we asked participants how confident they felt about their decisions. Paradoxically, the people who were the worst at identifying AI impostors were the most confident in their guesses.

In other words, the people who were most susceptible to being tricked by AI weren’t even aware they were being deceived.

À lire aussi :
Scams, deepfake porn and romance bots: advanced AI is exciting, but incredibly dangerous in criminals’ hands

Biased training data deliver biased outputs

The fourth industrial revolution – which includes technologies such as AI, robotics and advanced computing – has profoundly changed the kinds of “faces” we see online.

AI-generated faces are readily available, and their use comes with both risks and benefits. Although they have been used to help find missing children, they have also been used in identity fraud, catfishing and cyber warfare.

People’s misplaced confidence in their ability to detect AI faces could make them more susceptible to deceptive practices. They may, for instance, readily hand over sensitive information to cybercriminals masquerading behind hyperrealistic AI identities.

Another worrying aspect of AI hyperrealism is that it’s racially biased. Using data from another study which also tested Asian and Black faces, we found only white AI-generated faces looked hyperreal.

When asked to decide whether faces of colour were human or AI-generated, participants guessed correctly about half the time – akin to guessing randomly.

This means white AI-generated faces look more real than AI-generated faces of colour, as well as white human faces.

Implications of bias and hyperrealistic AI

This racial bias likely stems from the fact that AI algorithms, including the one we tested, are often trained on images of mostly white faces.

Racial bias in algorithmic training can have serious implications. One recent study found self-driving cars are less likely to detect Black people, placing them at greater risk than white people. Both the companies producing AI, and the governments overseeing them, have a responsibility to ensure diverse representation and mitigate bias in AI.

The realism of AI-generated content also raises questions about our ability to accurately detect it and protect ourselves.

In our research, we identified several features that make white AI faces look hyperreal. For instance, they often have proportionate and familiar features, and they lack distinctive characteristics that make them stand out as “odd” from other faces. Participants misinterpreted these features as signs of “humanness”, leading to the hyperrealism effect.

At the same time, AI technology is advancing so rapidly it will be interesting to see how long these findings apply. There’s also no guarantee AI faces generated by other algorithms will differ from human faces in the same ways as those we tested.

Since our study was published, we have also tested the ability of AI detection technology to identify our AI faces. Although this technology claims to identify the particular type of AI faces we used with a high accuracy, it performed as poorly as our human participants.

Similarly, software for detecting AI writing has also had high rates of falsely accusing people of cheating – especially people whose native language is not English.

Managing the risks of AI

So how can people protect themselves from misidentifying AI-generated content as real?

One way is to simply be aware of how poorly people perform when tasked with separating AI-generated faces from real ones. If we are more wary of our own limitations on this front, we may be less easily influenced by what we see online – and can take additional steps to verify information when it matters.

Public policy also plays an important role. One option is to require the use of AI to be declared. However, this might not help, or may inadvertently provide a false sense of security when AI is used for deceptive purposes – in which case it is almost impossible to police.

Another approach is to focus on authenticating trusted sources. Similar to the “Made in Australia” or “European CE tag”, applying a trusted source badge – which can be verified and has to be earned through rigorous checks – could help users select reliable media.

À lire aussi :
AI image generation is advancing at astronomical speeds. Can we still tell if a picture is fake?

Amy Dawel receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The funder had no role in the design and execution of this study, analyses, interpretation of the data, or decision to submit results.

Ben Albert Steward receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program. The funder had no role in the design and execution of this study, analyses, interpretation of the data, or decision to submit results.

Clare Sutherland receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The funder had no role in the design and execution of this study, analyses, interpretation of the data, or decision to submit results.

Eva Krumhuber et Zachary Witkower ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.

– ref. Can you spot the AI impostors? We found AI faces can look more real than actual humans – https://theconversation.com/can-you-spot-the-ai-impostors-we-found-ai-faces-can-look-more-real-than-actual-humans-215160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynley Wallis, Professor, Griffith University

First Nations people please be advised this article speaks of racially discriminating moments in history, including the distress and death of First Nations people.

A pillar of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is truth-telling. This is easy to say, but not easy to do. Truth-telling involves the practice of revealing things that are uncomfortable, long hidden or forgotten. Truth-telling practices across the country (and globally, such as in Canada) are bringing attention to histories and societal inequities that are often contentious and difficult to hear.

The Native Mounted Police is one such difficult story in Queensland’s truth-telling process.

The Native Mounted Police operated in Queensland for 80 years, starting in 1849. It consisted of small groups of between six and 15 Aboriginal troopers under the command of white officers. The troopers were typically recruited from areas far from where they were sent to serve.

Detachments of troopers were regularly sent out on patrol, covering large areas along the frontier of the colony in pursuit of Indigenous people who were considered to be “problematic”. Their main job was to protect civilian settlers, the lands they had taken up, and their livelihoods – by whatever means necessary.

While on patrol, the Native Mounted Police are known to have engaged in violence against Aboriginal people, including killings of men, women and children, kidnappings, rape, and the forcible removal of children.

Truth-telling will mean coming to terms with this violence. Their actions radically altered the makeup of First Nations groups, diminished their populations, and changed where and how survivors could live.

With respect to this history, renowned Badtjala artist and scholar Dr Fiona Foley has said

I believe this country carries deep wounds from the trauma of these frontier wars. We carry it inside our souls whether we are conscious of them or not.

What we’ve found in our research

For seven years, we have been reconstructing the activities of the Native Mounted Police in order to help Queenslanders begin to understand this history.

In our research, we combed through archaeological work on Native Mounted Police camps and artefacts, examined historical documents (newspapers, colonial government documents, private diaries, hospital records and maps) from public archives and libraries, and conducted oral histories with a range of people, including descendants of Native Mounted Police officers and troopers, and descendants of massacre survivors.

We have organised all of our findings – nearly 20,000 documents in total – in an online database to shed light on the lives of the 450 officers and over 1,000 Aboriginal troopers who made up the Native Mounted Police, and the violence they administered.

Some people question why Aboriginal boys and men would enlist in a force whose job was to hunt down and kill other Aboriginal people. As we discuss at length in a research article, the reasons are varied and many. Some were directly or indirectly coerced through threats of violence or reduced prison sentences, but many seemingly “volunteered”. Many recruits may have had few, if any, other viable options – in essence, they were faced with a “choiceless choice”.

Like other native policing forces used by the British in Africa and India, the Queensland Native Mounted Police also deliberately exploited the fact that Indigenous people from one part of the country often regarded those from another as strangers, if not enemies.

The extent of frontier conflict

Other researchers have mapped massacre events in Australia in which more than six people were killed. Not all frontier conflict resulted in the deaths of large numbers of people, however. Large massacres were typically preceded by a series of smaller events and followed by others afterwards. These often included attacks on livestock or property rather than people, or the killings of individual people on both sides.

Our aim was to reconstruct as comprehensively as possible the scale and nature of all frontier conflict events, including violence that took place before the Native Mounted Police were officially established. All of this conflict would have set the scene for Indigenous people in their subsequent interactions with settler-colonists.

We divided conflict into four categories: attacks on stock or property, attacks on non-Indigenous people, attacks on Indigenous people and attacks on the Native Mounted Police themselves.

All together, we mapped more than 2,500 of these conflict events across colonial Queensland from 1623 until 1911. Our findings show violence occurred everywhere, but was especially common along the east coast and on Cape York Peninsula.

Violence commenced in Queensland in 1623, with the voyage of the Dutch vessel Pera, captained by Janszoon Carstensz. After settler colonists arrived in the early 1800s, we found violent incidents taking place in every decade from the 1820s onwards, peaking in 1866.

Because historical documents are biased in their focus on violence towards settlers, the most common form of conflict recorded was the killing of livestock, such as sheep, cattle and horses.

Pastoralists, agriculturalists, farmers and selectors had often invested their life savings in buying livestock and taking up land. They could little afford to lose their animals to Aboriginal spears. When they did, they often called in the Native Mounted Police, whose presence began a series of retaliatory events.

Read more:
Friday essay: ‘killed by Natives’. The stories – and violent reprisals – behind some of Australia’s settler memorials

Potentially higher death rates from conflict

Of the 165 Native Mount Police camps we have identified in our research, 150 have relatively secure beginning and end dates, with an average duration of 13 years per camp. This suggests that, generally, it took just over a decade to curb Aboriginal resistance in any given region.

In some areas, though, it took much longer. In the Cook Pastoral District (which covers most of Cape York Peninsula), for example, a staggering 54 Native Mounted Police camps operated from 1868 until 1929.

When the areal extent of different historic pastoral districts is taken into account, however, some had an even greater density of Native Mounted Police camps than Cook. Even though the Wide Bay District in southeast Queensland had only six camps between 1850 and 1864, its small size meant the Native Mounted Police presence here was quite intense.

Our data also suggests the death rates of frontier Aboriginal peoples was considerably higher than previous estimates.

Historians Raymond Evans and Robert Ørsted-Jensen have estimated some 41,000 Aboriginal people could have been killed at the hands of the Native Mounted Police between 1859 and 1897. Their estimate was based on reasonable and minimal assumptions drawn from historical documents and an average seven-year lifespan per camp.

Extending the duration of a camp to 13 years, in line with our newly identified data, increases the total deaths to potentially over 60,000.

Read more:
‘Why didn’t we know?’ is no excuse. Non-Indigenous Australians must listen to the difficult historical truths told by First Nations people

Ripples in Australia today

The government policies that allowed this decimation of Indigenous lives continue to have very real implications in Australian society today.

Australia’s colonial history has been built on policies designed to secure and maintain possession of Indigenous lands. Historically, colonial powers employed forces like the Native Mounted Police to enact widespread violence on the Indigenous people who stood in the way of this.

We can see the repercussions of historical actions to displace Aboriginal communities in processes such as native title claims. These processes force Aboriginal people to prove generational connections to land from which they were, at best, marginalised, and at worst, excluded.

Many Aboriginal groups can trace their families back to only a handful of ancestors because so many people were killed outright, died from starvation and disease, or were removed through measures such as the Stolen Generations.

The resounding defeat of the recent Voice to Parliament referendum is another case in point. It reveals a lack of understanding of the historical nature of violence against Indigenous people, the racist foundations of settler Australia, and how these continue to impact communities today.

Lynley Wallis receives funding from the Australia Research Council. She is affiliated with the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. and Wallis Heritage Consulting.

Heather Burke receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Troy Meston receives unrelated funding from Education QLD, NIAA, UNESCO, Griffith University.

– ref. Our mapping project shows how extensive frontier violence was in Queensland. This is why truth-telling matters – https://theconversation.com/our-mapping-project-shows-how-extensive-frontier-violence-was-in-queensland-this-is-why-truth-telling-matters-216726

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sacha Pidot, Molecular microbiologist; laboratory head, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest global threats to health, food security and development. This month, The Conversation’s experts explore how we got here and the potential solutions.

Imagine a world where simple infections could become life-threatening, where a small cut could spell disaster, and where doctors couldn’t treat diseases effectively anymore. This isn’t the plot of a science fiction movie – it’s a real concern.

For decades, antibiotics have been used successfully to fight a wide range of bacterial infections. However, overuse of these medicines has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, known as “superbugs”.

Scientists are now in a race against time to discover new antibiotics that can defeat these bacteria. While this has been a difficult task, the recently discovered antibiotic clovibactin has renewed hope that we can fight our way out of this antibiotic resistance crisis.

So is clovibactin the saviour we’ve been hoping for? Or is it another in a long list of antibiotics that will remain only useful for research? The results so far are mixed.

Read more:
The rise and fall of antibiotics. What would a post-antibiotic world look like?

Remind me, how do antibiotics work?

Antibiotics work by either directly killing bacteria or preventing them from growing and dividing. They do this by targeting parts of the bacterial cell that are not present in human cells.

Bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall. It might be helpful to imagine the cell walls around bacteria as the walls of a fortress, which helps them survive in the environment.

Antibiotics are like a group of knights trying to breach the walls and take down the enemy inside. Traditional antibiotics, like penicillin, act to weaken these walls. They kill the bacteria and make it easier for our immune system to finish the job.

However, bacteria have evolved to resist these attacks, meaning that antibiotics in some cases no longer have any effect.

Read more:
How do bacteria actually become resistant to antibiotics?

What about clovibactin?

Clovibactin works differently. It targets bacteria from the inside out, taking away the bricks that are used to build the wall in the first place.

Bacteria have very limited options when choosing bricks to build their walls, so this approach means that resistance is much less likely to develop.

This mechanism of action is unique and offers hope that we can use clovibactin as a model to develop other antibiotics that act in a similar way.

But significant challenges still lie ahead.

Why do most antibiotics fail?

The field of antibiotic discovery is littered with drugs that have failed to progress beyond the early stages of research.

Antibiotic testing usually progresses from the laboratory bench to animal trials and, eventually, to human trials. While some antibiotics are very effective at killing bacteria in the lab, they are not always used to treat patients.

There are many reasons why this happens that cannot be predicted when an antibiotic is first discovered. An unfortunate, yet common, example is that antibiotics that appear safe in animals may turn out to be toxic at the higher doses required to treat humans.

Such unforeseen complications during the development phase are one part of the reason why more than 98.5% of newly discovered antibiotics never make it out of the lab.

Even for those with a perfect development pathway, the average time to market is nine years at a cost of greater than US$1 billion.

For clovibactin, the early signs look promising. No toxicity in human cells was detected and it successfully cured mice infected with golden staph.

However, there are still risks and market forces that may also be against clovibactin.

Pharmaceutical companies want a return on their investment

Antibiotics are not particularly profitable drugs and for a drug company to recoup their investment, an antibiotic must kill as many different bacteria as possible.

Health bodies such as the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control have compiled lists of bacteria that pose the greatest threat to humans and for which we have limited treatments. Although clovibactin can kill some of the drug-resistant bacteria on these lists, it is not effective against the most troublesome and damaging bacteria.

Even for those it can kill, it does not appear to be superior to already available drugs, such as vancomycin.

Such shortcomings may prevent clovibactin from gaining future United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

Although, scientists may be able to overcome these issues by chemically “tweaking” clovibactin to give it the desired traits.

Read more:
Will we still have antibiotics in 50 years? We asked 7 global experts

Even if it works, we’ll still need other antibiotics

Although clovibactin offers hope, one new compound alone cannot solve our current antibiotic resistance crisis. In fact, even the 64 antibiotics currently in clinical trials will be insufficient, particularly as 80% of these will likely hit development hurdles.

The good news is that more than one-third of these 64 antibiotics target infections for which we desperately need new treatments, including tuberculosis and gut infections caused by Clostridium difficile.

As we eagerly await the day new antibiotics become part of our standard medical treatments, it’s crucial for all of us as individuals to continue practising good hygiene and following prescribed antibiotic regimens.

Continuing support for research to combat antibiotic resistance is also needed, not just from governments and non-profits, but also through policies that incentivise private sector investment.

In doing so, we can maintain these effective weapons in the fight against bacterial infections for as long as possible.

Read the other articles in The Conversation’s series on the dangers of antibiotic resistance here.

Sacha Pidot receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council for research on antibiotics.

– ref. Could new antibiotic clovibactin beat superbugs? Or will it join the long list of failed drugs? – https://theconversation.com/could-new-antibiotic-clovibactin-beat-superbugs-or-will-it-join-the-long-list-of-failed-drugs-212774

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Levy, Principal Scientist/Environment and Climate Research Leader, GNS Science

Projecting when and how fast the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will lose mass due to current and future global ocean warming – and the likely impact on sea level rise and coastal communities – is a priority for climate science.

We know deep water flowing towards and around Antarctica is warming, and the fringes of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) are increasingly vulnerable to ocean-driven melting.

Submerged continental shelves along large portions of West Antarctica, including offshore Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in the Amundsen Sea, are already bathed by upwelling arms of this relatively warm water.

Ice shelves in this region – massive floating slabs of ice that flow out from the coast – are already losing mass. Because ice shelves float, their melting doesn’t affect sea levels. But they hold back land-based ice, which does.

Recent research suggests increasing flow of warm deep water in this area will speed up the melting of the WAIS over the coming decades, regardless of future anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

This would mean global net-zero emissions targets cannot limit the amount of future sea-level rise caused by the melting of the WAIS. This poses significant challenges for coastal communities in low-lying regions as they plan for and adapt to unavoidable change.

Our project, an ambitious international collaboration known as the “Sensitivity of the WAIS to 2°C” (SWAIS2C), aims to retrieve sediments from the seafloor beneath the Ross Ice Shelf to explore how West Antarctica responded to warmer periods in Earth’s past – and what might happen in a warming future.

Read more:
Increasing melting of West Antarctic ice shelves may be unavoidable – new research

We may have (some) time

While it may appear too late to slow or stop the retreat of the WAIS in areas where the ocean cavities beneath ice shelves are already “warm”, the inevitable demise of the entire WAIS is not so certain. There are also regions where ice shelf cavities are currently “cold”.

The Ross and Ronne-Filchner are Earth’s largest ice shelves and currently buttress and stabilise large regions of ice in the West Antarctic interior. The ocean cavity that lies beneath the Ross Ice Shelf is cold, generally characterised by temperatures at or below minus 1.8°C.

A recent ice sheet modelling study shows these large ice shelves and the WAIS will remain largely intact under low-emissions pathways which aim to keep warming close to or below 2°C above pre-industrial values.

Read more:
Widespread collapse of West Antarctica’s ice sheet is avoidable if we keep global warming below 2℃

Modelling experiments indicate an emissions pathway in line with the goals of the Paris agreement can still limit the total contribution to sea level rise coming from the Antarctic ice sheet to 0.12–0.44  metres by 2100 (0.45–1.57  metres by 2300).

Importantly, these experiments also show that spatial patterns of ice thinning and retreat in the Amundsen Sea region are similar for 2100 compared to 2015 (see figure below) under both low and high emissions.

The clearest contrasts between the scenarios occur in the Ross Sea sector, where the grounding line of the ice shelf advances in low-emissions (“sustainable”) scenarios but the shelf ice thins or even collapses in high-emissions (“fossil fuel intensive”) scenarios.

Observation gaps from key Antarctic regions

Global surface temperature is likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial values by the early 2030s. It may warm by as much as 4.4°C by the end of this century.

Our current global policy and action trajectory will yield 2.7°C of warming by the end of century, but more ambitious pledges and targets could keep global warming to 2.0°C. We need to know how sensitive the large, cold-cavity ice shelves are to these increases in global temperature.

Ice sheet modelling suggests rapid cuts in emissions can still limit WAIS melt, but we lack direct observations to support these findings. Collecting new data from locations around the WAIS margin will offer insights into present-day changes and a possible future response to warming.

Significant effort to address data gaps has been made in the Amundsen Sea around the Thwaites Glacier region, but observations beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, especially near the point where the WAIS begins to float, are limited. The SWAIS2C project aims to address this knowledge gap.

Tapping the geological record

SWAIS2C is an international collaboration involving scientists, drillers, engineers and science communicators. Our team will travel to the Siple coast, close to the centre of West Antarctica, to melt holes through the ice shelf at two sites.

Oceanographic measurements and geophysical observations at each site will improve our understanding of current ocean mechanics and ice sheet dynamics. But to understand the potential future contribution to sea-level rise from melting of the WAIS, we will need to turn to the geological record.

Seafloor sediments from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf represent an archive of climate information from warmer periods in Earth’s history and offer a means to “see” how the ice shelf and ice sheet responded to past warmth.

We will drill up to 200 metres below the seafloor to recover a geological record of changing rock types that reflect environmental conditions at the time they formed.

These data will allow us to identify previous episodes when the ice shelf thinned and disintegrated, driving retreat of the WAIS interior. Environmental data from these intervals will identify the regional climatic conditions that drove this retreat and help determine the sensitivity of the system to increases in global mean temperature.

SWAIS2C builds on other successful international scientific drilling programmes in the Ross Sea region, including ANDRILL and IODP and is supported by ICDP.

Richard Levy receives funding from the Antarctic Science Platform supported by the New Zealand Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment.

Dan Lowry receives funding from the Antarctic Science Platform supported by the New Zealand Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment.

Huw Horgan receives funding from the Antarctic Science Platform supported by the New Zealand Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment.

Tina van de Flierdt receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council in the United Kingdom.

Denise Kulhanek, Gavin Dunbar, Molly Patterson, and Nick Golledge do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. We can still prevent the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet – if we act fast to keep future warming in check – https://theconversation.com/we-can-still-prevent-the-collapse-of-the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-if-we-act-fast-to-keep-future-warming-in-check-215878